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Nuggets of Leadership Wisdom from “How to Be a REAL Success” (Assignment)

Welcome back to another assignment blog post! Today I’ll be answering questions about things I learned from “How to Be a REAL Success” by John C. Maxwell. Enjoy!

1. “Most people can trace their success and failures back to relationships in their lives.”

This quote, as well as the Law of the Inner Circle discussed in the 21 Laws of Leadership handout, are explaining how those you surround yourself with impact your success and effectiveness as a leader. When you’re surrounded by those who uplift you and add to your life instead of taking away from it, you become so much more effective as a leader. This idea helped me understand a few reasons why I was finding success while in the TALONS program. The program has created an environment for me where I can explore my potential as a leader and succeed, in many ways because of the people in it. Later, I’m going to talk about how my attitude impacts my ability to lead, and the people around me often impact my attitude.

I chose this nugget because it helped me understand a fundamental aspect of success, leadership or otherwise, and that’s what this course is all about. I also chose it because it helps me understand a lot of the experiences I’ve had in my past and taught me how to avoid repeating those mistakes. I can apply it to TALONS by continuing to build connections with those who enrich my life and succeeding alongside those people. I want to make sure that I learn how to work with people and find out what kind of people I should always surround myself with so I can be more successful than I have been in the past. My classmates are all wonderful, and I hope I continue to grow as a leader because of that kind of environment for many more years. 

2. Your team can only do what you equip them to do, and you need to understand the reasons why you might fail to equip them.

This is basically the idea that you need to be aware of your habits and give other people the skills they need to help you. Not only does it allow you to be effective because you’re not doing a million things at once, but it also gives them the skills and experience to succeed. On page 12 of the book, there’s a list of 7 reasons why we fail to equip others. They are as follows:

  1. It’s hard work
  2. We underestimate others
  3. We enjoy doing the tasks ourselves.
  4. We receive ego strength from being needed
  5. We are in the habit of doing everything 
  6. We want to keep control 
  7. We don’t notice the leadership potential in those around us

The ones that apply to me most are 3, 4 and 6. I like doing things myself because I want them to go my way and I love to do them, even if those tasks might be too much for me to handle when I have other responsibilities. It would be beneficial to me and those around me if I could equip others to help me with those tasks. I don’t have a “team” that I lead and can assign tasks to, but in group projects, I’ve had things fall apart because I wanted to do everything and didn’t want anyone else to because I was afraid it was too much for them/it wouldn’t be the same. In that sense, I also admit to being guilty of #2 on the list.

It’s likely obvious by now why I chose this nugget – It’s one of my greatest leadership faults! I want to apply this to TALONS by contributing the right amount to group assignments. I don’t want to do too much (I’m rarely guilty of this, but I also don’t want to do too little) and I want to equip the others in my group with the skills to complete tasks I believe they can do!

3. I learned that my attitude towards my organization, and the factors that influence it, can impact my ability to lead my team & “Attitude has less to do with position and more to do with disposition”.

Session 3 connected very well to the rest of the lessons. It put into perspective the reason why I needed to surround myself with a ‘dream team’, how important my relationships were (because the people around you influence your attitude, which is another nugget) and that my leadership was impacted by my inner circle (See the Relationships section). Besides the perspective-gaining that this session gave me, the real “nugget” of wisdom that I took from it was “Leadership has less to do with position than it does with disposition”. I interpreted this as saying that a leader leads regardless of their actual title – if you have a positive, leader-like attitude, you are a leader, even if you aren’t officially the CEO or something of that nature. I can be a leader by having the attitude of a leader and understanding how my environment shapes my effectiveness as such.

I chose these lessons because they connected well to all my other lessons, and gave me  perspective on the topic of being an everyday leader. I want to continue expanding my knowledge of these principles so I can apply them to my everyday life. I want to apply them to TALONS specifically by stepping up and helping out wherever I can, demonstrating leadership to those around me and inspiring others to act, even if I’m still a Grade 9 and not any kind of “leader” in the class. I care a lot about my ‘organization’ (class) and that attitude is what I want to be known for as a leader!

4. I learned that I need to improve my own leadership skills by learning from other leaders, allowing me to “model the way” for my team, and only then will my team be able to improve.

I can’t quite choose between three lessons, “The Law of the Lid”, leaders “Model the Way” and the idea that you can learn from other leaders to develop a leadership style. I wanted to challenge myself to come up with one overall lesson combining these ideas.

To break down each individual part of this lumpy nugget of wisdom, I’ll explain each thing on it’s own. The Law of the Lid states that when the leader of an organization is at a certain level, their organization can only operate below that level, so in order for a team to be effective, a leader must improve their own skills first. The leader puts a “lid” on the teams effectiveness. “Modelling the way” is a principle explained in the What Leaders Do section of the book on page 22, and it’s another leadership weakness I want to turn into a strength using hard work. I discussed this a bit in the earlier paragraphs, but if I lead by setting an example, I can lead better than I could by waving a shiny title around. The exercise in the back of the book where I took strong leaders’ “styles” and compared them with my own really hit these points home and helped me understand the value of self-improvement when it comes to leadership. I chose these nuggets because I thought the way they connected to each other and the other lessons was excellent, and I believe they’re some of the most important leadership lessons one can learn. I can apply them to TALONS by applying them how I would to any scenario; I can improve my own leadership skills by improving myself and learning from other good leaders, and then model the way for others to be excellent leaders as well.

Thanks for reading! Please enjoy the rest of your stay.

• October 24, 2020


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Comments

  1. Dylan October 26, 2020 - 1:07 am

    actually epic

    • Bana October 26, 2020 - 3:21 pm

      epic, thank you!!

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