This statement on serving sounds good and makes perfect sense or does it? So many quotes such as these pass our desk on a daily basis and in most cases we nod our head in agreement….but do we really believe it? Do we really practice it?
We presume that we are doing all the things we learnt, but are we? In truth leadership can become like driving a car. The longer we have been driving the more bad habits creep into our driving ability. We drive while texting or talking on our phone, we change lanes without indicating, we drive with one hand on the steering wheel, we sometimes forget to check our blind spots and can have many other bad habits. In fact our driving skills are only truly exposed when we have a learner driver wanting to learn how to drive from us. We may be able to teach the basics, but they will have to do things very differently if they want to pass the test. In fact we may even adjust some of the things we are doing whilst teaching them, purely because we suddenly become consciously aware of a bad habit we had developed.
Leadership is the same. We allow bad habits to creep in and unless we do an audit on ourselves we may not be consciously aware that we are actually being ineffective leaders. For this reason I highly recommend that leaders of people read leadership books and speak to other leaders. If possible they should go on leadership refresher courses. Yes, you may say that you learn nothing new. However that is just arrogance and shows how little you really know. Rather identify whether the lesson you have heard before is actually in operation in the way you lead. Ask yourself, “Am I doing this?”. Look for the gold nuggets that will make you a better leader. Get back to the basics. The only way we can become servant leaders is by learning that we need to serve those that follow us to the best of our ability and also understand that our skills can and will improve if we commit to a lifestyle of humility and learning.
Have a very blessed day.