I’m a young leader. Well, I may not be considered as “young” anymore, but, at 34, it appears that I still fall into that category. Most young leaders want one thing: respect. They want to know that those around them respect them as leaders. Yet it seems that many young leaders want to demand respect instead of earning respect.
I’ve been reading the book, The Leadership Pipeline, by Charan and others. In talking about young leaders, he says that the first step in leadership is managing yourself. Here are some areas that this focuses on:
- Planning (so that work is completed on time)
- Punctuality
- Content
- Quality
- Reliability
If you are a young leader, how would you rate yourself in each of these categories?
After you develop these qualities, Charan says:
When people become skilled individual contributors who produce good results – especially when they demonstrate an ability to collaborate with others – they usually receive additional responsibilities.
Additional responsibilities usually means respect. They believe in you. They believe that you can do the job and quite possibly other jobs.
Let me ask again: If you are a young leader and you desire respect, how would you rate yourself in each of the categories listed above? If you’re not doing well, stop looking up at the people above you and start looking in the mirror. (Wow, that was a little harsh)
Josh,
One of the main reasons churches hire our firm to fill their open staff positions is the vacuum of leadership – both young and old. I regularly hear the “our last staff member lacked…” in areas like – •Planning •Punctuality •Content •Quality •Reliability, etc.
These skills are imperative to effective leadership yet there are folks out there who say they’re too corporate or not-spiritual. I believe these attributes are a must when trying to effectively carry out the mission of an organization. When we start looking at ourselves to see how we’re doing in these areas is when we can start to really grow our leadership.
Josh,
Great post. At the ripe old age of 45, I am certainly no longer a young leader but can relate too many experiences of having failed at leadership at a young age.
Through trial and error and God’s grace, I have come to the conclusion that effective and ‘respected’ leadership comes from a servant’s heart. I know this may sound cliche but time, trial, error and success have proven that cliches are often born from truth and fact.
‘Respect’ is such a loosely used and footballed term that I encourage anyone involved in any organization at any level to not sweat but expect respect as a result of actions be it in leadership or team involvement.
I think young leaders (and again I write from experience) oftentimes approach the role with a bit of a chip on their shoulder due to the very term ‘young leader.’ ‘Young’ leaders seem to struggle with thoughts of ‘is this deserved,’ ‘why me,’ ‘what if I mess up,’ ‘older subordinates are waiting/expecting/hoping on me to fail,’ etc., to which I respond, you’ve been entrusted with this privilege because someone believes this is deserved, that you are the one best qualified for this role, most likely to succeed leading the entire team to the universal benefit of the organization.
My experience is that respect is only an earned status, not an assigned status nor mandated by title. My absolute belief as a result of 20 years of executive management roles (failed and succeeded) is that respect results from results achieved and results achieved result from leadership through servitude.
Young leader, disarm your subordinates by serving them and everyone in your organization. Do this and enjoy the weight of the respect earned.
“Young leader, disarm your subordinates by serving them and everyone in your organization. Do this and enjoy the weight of the respect earned.” …..and after serving them and everyone in your organization out of love and with a pure heart, if you still don’t feel respected, don’t give up. Keep on serving those around you because that’s what a leader is called to do…..acknowledged or not.
I like posts like this. Great information. Very encouraging.
This is good stuff!! This needs to be taught in a staff leadership lesson. Where I struggle is coaching and encouraging this in others especially if those areas do not come naturally without frustration.
Great content. You know the interesting thing about leadership is that the basic things are so often overlooked. I’ve been serving for over 20 years in some sort of leadership capacity and can tell from experience that no matter how good you think you are, the basics are the only thing that make you successful. Granted things like wisdom and vision are important, but I’ve found that no matter how good my idea (or someone else’s) happened to be…it simply wasn’t successful without the qualities you listed here.
We all know first hand of many organizations that have stalled out because they had no vision…plenty of people to work, but no ideas for the future. However, I think the real tragedy lies when you have a clear vision that dies on the vine due to failure to meet these basic requirements.
The longer I do this leadership thing the more I wonder if anything will be more important than good planning, organization, reliability, etc. And after a good kick in the pants from your blog here, I’m more convinced that being a mature leader may be defined by how well practiced one becomes in mastering the simple things. In making them so much a part of our daily lives that they aren’t aware of them at all.
I suppose this explains why lately I’ve come to admire the person that has time to worship freely in the act of service. Because deep down they know that the basics have been covered and they can enjoy the journey a little bit along the way. I fear too often my lack of preparing for the simple things has resulted in my being too busy to see God in what I’m doing. And instead of walking with God I found myself praying that everything would be all right in the end. I suppose it’s good to remember that the Trinity doesn’t include God the Holy Glue that Keeps the Vision from Falling Apart. Perhaps that’s been part of my job in leadership all along.
Thanks for the blog, Josh. It was very welcome indeed.