After years of pursing higher education in leadership development, I realized that my academic growth wasn't just in the classroom, but in the world around me including my workplace environment. Occasionally, I have the opportunity to be taught. To absorb the learning of others. To experience growth in my personal, educational or work profession.
John F. Kennedy stated, "Learning and leadership are indispensable to each other."
This week I spent a week with a cohort of executive development directors as we discussed philanthropy, analyzed strategic goals. and shared best practices. The world is changing in its deliverables and the expectations of nonprofits to adapt, pivot, and be transparent are more important than ever.
As leaders we must do the same in our personal deliverables. A deliverable is a tangible or intangible good or service produced as a result of a project that is intended to be delivered to a customer. A deliverable could be a report, a document, a software product, a server upgrade or any other building block of an overall project.
Deepak Bhagat, co-founder and COO @Amplify states, "A great leader can always be spotted with smart folks gaining knowledge, sharing experiences, and discussing ideas." (https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/great-leaders-never-stop-learning-deepak-bhagat)
Bhagat believes these are the reasons why the great leaders of the world never stop learning and why we should consider following their lead:
To lead themselves better: Great leaders understand that to lead others better, they must learn to lead themselves better. The learning happens through books, events, courses and training programs enabling them to develop their skills and take their personality a notch higher, thus becoming a better leader.
To improve their level of performance: When you are leading a group of people, a certain level of performance and output is expected of you. Great leaders have a knack for taking up risky tasks to challenge themselves and better their performance. The best learning often comes from the most difficult tasks, clients, projects - that’s why they don’t mind taking them up.
To stay up to date: Whether or not you are a leader, it’s essential to keep yourself updated to stay relevant in the current scenario. Good leaders will always ask “what’s next?” to grow themselves, their organizations, and their people.
To learn from the experience of others: You don’t always have to make mistakes to learn from them. Smart ones have the wisdom to extract lessons from the experience of others. That said, they don’t shy away from sharing the lessons learned from their own mistakes with others.
I'm a firm believer that growth doesn't have to be painful. It shouldn't be forced or required. It should be a personal desire to want to know more, to be a better follower, and an even better leader. Like our eyelash model in the photo, growth should be something that enhances us or makes us extraordinary not keep us ordinary. It's a subtle change, but with a "wow" impact!
What She Said ~ Beverly
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