Leadership Development
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.
- Forging the team
- 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:
- Knowledge (mental models of how the external world works)
- Skill (the ability to manipulate the external world)
- 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
- 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
