Leadership development is the improvement of your personal ability to lead.  It is a process of self improvement.

Leaders are concerned with two primary functions. These are functions that only the leader can perform, everything else can, in theory, be done by someone else.

1. Forging the team
2. Having and articulating vision

Therefore, all of the areas that I focus on improve a persons ability to do one or both of the above things.

I break up the development of a leader into three categories:

1. Knowledge (mental models of how the external world works)
2. Skill (the ability to manipulate the external world)
3. Habit (action without thought)

I further break these down into certain key areas that I believe all leaders should develop if they wish to become competent in their craft.

There are many, many more areas that should be developed too but I present here my key ones.

• Knowledge
  • History
  • Psychology
  • Anthropology
  • Management
  • Current affairs
  • Self
  • Ethics
• Skill
  • Understanding
  • Thinking
  • Persuasion
  • Investing
  • Mathematics
• Habit
  • Correct sleep
  • Correct diet
  • Exercise
  • Respect
  • Compassion
  • Reflection
  • Goal setting
  • Positive thinking
  • Reading
  • Note taking
  • Questioning

This is the basis of my thoughts on leadership development. In the words of the great Warren Bennis…

“It is clear to me now that the process of becoming a leader and the process of becoming a fully integrated human being are one and the same, both grounded in self-discovery.” – Warren Bennis

- James