Author Richard Brookhiser wrote, "There is no formula for educating a leader,
because he must be responsible for much of his own education himself."
One of the top priorities for any leader is education. The formal variety may be fine, but the type of education to which I’m referring encompasses much more than that. It begins with the spirit of gaining knowledge. Leaders and would-be leaders alike must be hungry for learning, and the result should be habitual, ongoing, aggressive, self-education.
It is the job of the leader, and no one else, to advance their own education.
Leaders learn from many sources and circumstances. Here is just a short list:
1. Other leaders: Leaders learn from others; those who provide a good example and those who provide a bad one. Leaders should always look at those who’ve gone before them in a category, edeavor, or situation and seek to glean what can be useful from that person’s experience. As the saying goes, experience is the best teacher: OTHER people’s experience!
2. Mentors: One of the lost arts of leadership is the use of a mentor. Many of the great leaders throughout history had excellent mentors for at least portions of their lives. Mentors can provide clarity, insight, and guidance in areas of blindness or ignorance for the leader. Friends will tell you what you want to hear, mentors will tell you what you need to hear. It may not always be comfortable, you might not alw ays want to hear what the mentor has to say, but a true leader will want to know the truth so that he or she can change and get more effective.
3. Experience: It has been joked that experience comes from good judgment. And good judgment occurs after enough bad judgment. In other words, experience is a trial and error affair. The only way to process our mistakes productively is to learn from them and never repeat them. It’s okay to make a mistake, but it’s never okay to continue on with the same mistake, and certainly not to the point where the mistake becomes a destructive habit. Our experiences are there to make us better. Take all you can from each one.
4. Books: Almost without exception the great leaders of the ages have been big readers. Most people don’t read. And of those that do, most of them are reading only for entertainment. But leaders read with a specific intent to get better, to gain insight, and to grow in their wisdom, discernment, and influence. Richard Brookhiser, in his excellent book George Washington on Leadership wrote, "Washington supplemented a meager education with a lifetime of self-education. Washington would read history, and military history, all his life."
With just these four methods (and there are more), one can get a good idea of the many ways leaders have before them to learn both the principles and the specifics of their trade. The key is that the education of a leaders becomes a magnificent obsession. It should be developed as the most precious professional skill. When a leader is through learning, he or she is through!
What habits are you forming in the area of personal development?
Are you hungry for learning?
Are you reading good books on a regular basis?
Do you have a mentor?
Do you organize your experiences and/or thoughts in a journal or in "game planning" sessions?
Are you "thinking ahead of the airplane" or just taking the shots of life as they come?
Are you associating with other leaders?
I’ll leave you with this: may the goal of all your learning not be knowledge, but action!
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