After watching John C. Maxwell’s The 360° Leader DVDs, and filling out the Participant guide, I can say that it has given me a lot of insight into what good leadership is like. Below are some of the points that stuck with me the most.
The Position Myth
The position myth is the myth that leadership is based off of the position you hold. It is the myth that your position, authority, and power give you leadership skills. Furthermore, it also gives an idea that being in a higher position slowly builds up your leadership skills, as you use your authority. I chose this point because it is one that I believed for my whole life, and presumably a lot of others as well. I also chose it because it is the myth that the book ultimately tries to debunk, as the book is about being able to lead from all positions of an organization, and not specifically from the top. This relates to TALONS as the position myth is fairly widespread, and in a program in which leadership is a major component, not everyone can become the leader in the highest position, and thus, everyone needs to be able to lead from different positions in the group. Furthermore, if everyone had this idea, then people would fight over authority, thus creating a weak team. This helps me improve my leadership skills because I have a better understanding of leadership. Moreover, this better understanding allows me to become able to lead from different positions, whether that be the top, the middle, or the bottom of the organization. To state that, understanding that this myth is in fact a myth is a fundamental to becoming a great leader, is an understatement, especially in the context of the 360° Leader.
The link below has a lot more information on the Position Myth, under the Position Myth.
https://ceotribe.com/blog/7-myths-leading-middle-holding-back-overcome/#:~:text=He%20writes%3A%20%22360%C2%B0%20Leadership,lead%20up%20and%20lead%20across.%22
Become a Go-To Player
My next point is the point “Become a Go-To Player”. The concept is like the name suggests, become a player that those around you can go to for help. In the book, it also describes a go-to player as someone who can work when the pressure is high, and resources and momentum are low. Therefore, a go-to player is someone who you can rely on no matter the situation. I chose this point because it suggests that a good leader is someone you can rely at any time. I personally like to think of it this way: Every time you put in effort or skill towards something, you get a score based on how much effort or skill you put in. That means you could be less skilled than someone, and still get a higher score through being reliable. Furthermore, through repetition as a result of being go-to player, your skill level will increase gradually. This relates to TALONS, and everything in general, as leadership, or any responsibility you have, doesn’t have an on-off switch, and is not something you can chose to do one day but not do another day. This also helps me improve my leadership skills because it not only teaches me to be reliable, but to be reliable in any circumstance, even if the circumstance isn’t the best. Being reliable, like stated above, also allows me to improve my skills through repetition.
Place People in their Strength Zones
My final point is place people in their strength zones. This one is also fairly self-explanatory as it basically says to assign people to positions and jobs where they are the strongest. I chose this point in particular because when people are in their strength zones, they work faster and the fruits of their labour have a higher quality, thus allowing the team to work faster and have higher quality results. In addition, being put in a strength zone means that it is probably the easiest, thus being the less stressful and more enjoyable, relative to other positions. Everyone has gotten a job that was in the middle of their strength zone, that they did not feel as though it was a job before. This builds further onto speed and efficiency of the individual and the team, and could even boost the morale of the individual or at a team level. This relates to TALONS in two ways. The first way is that in TALONS, or any situation in general, you want to maximize quality and efficiency without compromising either, and this is a good solution to that problem. The second relation is not as direct as the first. TALONS uses the Autonomous Learner Model (ALM). The ALM essentially puts you in your strength zone, albeit that explanation is severely oversimplified. This allows me to improve my leadership skills because it gives me a way to achieve both quality and efficiency. Moreover, it can allow people to work with minimal stress.