https://www.leadershipnow.com/leadershop/johnmaxwell.html

Be better tomorrow than you are today:

One of the ideas that stuck to me the most, after going through John Maxwell’s 360° Leader book, was “Be better tomorrow than you are today” (Maxwell, 2006). This is very influential idea, but what is even more “if what you did yesterday still looks big to you, you haven’t done much today”. I really like this quote because it perfectly illustrates a growth mindset, or a mindset where you want to improve rather than finish. I know that in the past I have set goals, and once I hit them, I felt finished and didn’t do anything more about it. What I could’ve done better was change my goal entirely into a growth mindset goal. For example, if my goal was to complete some math worksheets, then once I’d finished them, I would put them aside and never think about it again. But if my goal was to try and improve my math skills, then I would do my math worksheets but once I could do them easily, I would do harder ones and push outside my comfort zone, where I would continue to grow more every day. Therefore, I like this idea, it shows how important learning is. Learning is a very important part of school and consequently, TALONS. In TALONS we do a lot of accelerated and in-depth work, so being ‘being better tomorrow than today’ is a great mindset to be in. By thinking this way, I could not only complete what is necessary, but master it and remember it in the future. When you are a leader, you need to be good at setting goals for you and your team. So, to improve my leadership skills, I could set growth-oriented goals. This would therefore make me and my team better and better every, fulfilling the original statement “be better tomorrow than you are today”.

Complete your peers instead of competing with them:

This idea surprisingly was very new to me because it is natural to think that to progress your leadership you need to get above the others and compete with them. I like this idea because it is a good way to say that you should be selfless. John Maxwell said that competition is good, but you should put completion ahead of that. Here’s my favourite part of Maxwell’s completion vs. competition: “People who compete with others think win-lose, people who complete others think win-win” (Maxwell 2006). That is how I think of completing others, instead of wanting the best for yourself and wanting others to lose, you want the best for everyone. By trying to complete the people on the team instead of competing, I could make the entire team better, therefore being a better leader. I have in previous group activities, tried to be the best in the group, to stand out by competing with the people in my group. Instead, I could have tried to make the group better, and that way compete with the other groups. From previous experiences, trying to make your group better and competing with the other groups encourages them to become better. But trying to stand out in your own group often results in bad communication and discourages others in the group. The first example is completing, and the second example is competing. In TALONS we do a lot of group activities, especially on trips, I could implement this strategy to try and encourage completing vs. competing in those activities.

Let the best idea win:

Letting the best idea win is a concept I have personally really struggled with this in the past and it’s something I need to improve at, which is why I chose it. I’m sure everyone has had the moment where you suggest a great idea, but someone proposes a better one, but then you argue that yours is better even though you know you’re wrong. Well, I have done so as well, and here’s a quote “It’s harder to champion the vision if it’s not your vision” (Maxwell 2006). This basically means that you are more reluctant to work off someone else’s idea because it wasn’t you who came up with it. The main reason people do this is because of ego, and people don’t want to look stupid because their idea isn’t the best. However, this can have consequences. These consequences can be that you give everyone a bad mood because of your arguing, or that people go along with your idea, and everyone is held back because the idea is just worse. In TALONS we need good communication and social skills on the various tasks we do that involves leadership, like in planning of events where the best idea should definitely win. All leaders should let the best idea win, it’s just better for the team, so to become a better leader, I’ll do just that.

 

Interesting video on the first lesson about a growth mindset: