Positional Leadership

Yesterday I posted John Maxwell's 5 Levels of Leadership: Position, Permission, Production, People Development, Pinnacle. Throughout the book, Maxwell writes about the Upside & Downside of each leadership level. The following is about the Upside & Downside of Level 1: Position 

The Upside

• A leadership position is usually given to people because they have leadership potential
• The best leaders promote people into leadership based on leadership potential, not on politics, seniority, credentials, or convenience.
• Your initial goal should be to show your leader and your team that you deserve the position you have received.
• No man is a leader until his appointment is ratified in the minds and the hearts of his men.
• If you want to lead, you need to grow. The only way to improve an organization is to grow and improve the leaders.
• Good leaders are always good learners
• What kind of leader do you want to be?
• Do you want to be a tyrant or a team builder?
• Do you want to come down on people or lift them up?
• Do you want to give orders or ask questions?
• You can develop whatever style you want as long as it is consistent with who you are.
• Leadership is much less about what you do, and much more about who you are. – Frances Hesselbein
• Good leadership begins with leaders knowing who they are.
• Your values are the soul of your leadership , and they drive your behavior.
• Before you can grow and mature as a leader, you must have a clear understanding of your values and commit to living consistently with them – since they will shape your behavior and influence the way you lead.
• People with different personalities, different approaches, different value succeed not because one set of values or practices is superior, but because their value and practices are genuine.
• If you want to become a better leader, you must not only know yourself and define your value. You must also live them out.

The Downside 

• Just because you have the right to do something as a leader doesn’t mean that it is the right thing to do.
• “Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.” – Abraham Lincoln
• The position does not make the leader – the leader makes the position
• Good leaders leave an organization when they have to follow bad leaders.
• When people follow a leader because they have to, they will do only what they have to. People don’t give their best to leaders they like least.
• Success demands more than most people are willing to offer, but not more than they are capable of giving.
•  “If you don’t invest very much, then defeat doesn’t hurt very much, and winning is not very exciting.” – Dick Vermiel