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James Allen states that people are willing to improve their circumstances but not willing to change themselves.   I think a lot of times it is not a willful unwillingness.  I just think that perhaps some of us do not prioritize leadership development at its appropriate level of importance.  In my case, it was not on the radar although I had natural leadership abilities to some extent.

The questions that I could not answer in the affirmative in my first business was what am I doing to develop myself and what am I doing to develop others?   Wow!  If I had just asked those two questions early on in my leadership it could have made a tremendous difference not only in my life but in the lives of my team members.    What about you?  Are you intentionally growing your leadership?     Are there others who depend on you doing so?

James Allen also stated that the greatest gap in the world is between knowing and doing.     Someone said that we cannot become what we need by remaining what we are!  The more seriously we consider our leadership growth the closer we will become the leader that will make a significant difference in our lives and the lives of others.    How do we bridge this gap?  To borrow a phrase from Nike, just do it!  Let’s just make the decision to do what is necessary to improve our leadership abilities by doing something daily.   Schedule an hour a day to read, study and apply what you learn in leadership.

Maximize what you are doing by participating in seminars, mastermind groups, lunch and learns and speaking events where leadership is discussed as well as developing mastermind alliances with peers.  What resonates with you from those sessions must be applied to make them a part of your leadership skill set as soon as possible.  It might mean mentioning them or having training sessions on a book or topic with your team as well as used in your decision-making process at the earliest opportunity. However, this leadership training must lead to the understanding of the necessity for and the development of succession and contingency plans.

There is a difference between deciding and doing.  If you have decided to improve your leadership ability that is a great start.  However, you must start.  John Maxwell gives an example of his father’s favorite riddle and it went like this:  Five frogs are sitting on a log.  Four decide to jump off.  How many are left?  Most of us respond instinctively, one.   However, there are five because deciding without doing means that no action was taken at all.  Decide and do today to make or continue your leadership development as a priority on your calendar.