FEBRUARY 28 • TRUE LEADERSHIP • EPISODE 59
Level 5 Leadership: Pinnacle 
Brothers, join in imitating me, and keep your eyes on those who walk according to the example you have in us.
Philippians 3:17
To be a Level 5 Leader, you must purpose to develop leaders full-time — not gain followers or do general projects within the organization. Your complete goal is the improvement of individuals lives. You want to help them grow into leaders that improve the lives of everyone they touch. You should now be spending 100% of your time developing leaders. Your desire is to leave a legacy of leaders who can more than fill your shoes and take the organization further. This is true for families as well. Your goal is to train up your children to learn to lead themselves, their peers, their organizations. Not only a culture of leadership, but an ongoing legacy of leadership. My dad used to love saying to me, I’ve taught you everything you know… but not everything I know! You want to be able to say to the leaders you are mentoring, I taught you more than I know!
Ask yourself some questions… What is the quality of the people you have trained to be leaders? How effective will they be after you’re gone? Do you have a deep bench of leaders ready to take over? Have you earned the right to be heard by your leaders? Do others who don’t even know you respect what you have accomplished in those leaders? Do people call you a servant leader? What about your mentorees? One of the main reasons I am writing these blogs and ultimately the book, is to give me a methodology to intentionally train other leaders and to use as a mechanism to gauge potential leaders. Use this as a platform for writing your own guideline for succession.
During your first 20 years of life, you are in the Preparation Phase of life. As you began your career and for the next 20 years, you are in the Process Phase —you’re learning how to process the work and getting really good at it. The next 20 years are the Production Phase — you’ve really good at what you do — an expert if you will — and you have learned how to lead during this time. Finally, the last 20 years you are a Patriarch. This is when you master giving back, building legacy, and mentoring others. This isn’t an idle period — you still need to learn and grow even more in leadership. That’s one thing that makes a Level 5 Leader — you continue to grow.
You must make room for other leaders. Share the load. In fact, plan on working yourself out of the position and letting them take over. This is where you really help your leaders learn to become selfless. Hopefully they will have arrived before this point, but now it’s time to really inculcate this into their hearts and minds — even their very soul! For years you have been helping people strengthen their weaknesses. Now it’s time to help them build their strengths. Your whole purpose now is to ensure your leaders are more then ready to take the organization from where you have grown it, to the next level. You must empower your people in this. Hopefully you have been mentoring your leaders for years so they can stand on your shoulders. As well, you should have built an inner circle that keeps you on target and can be your sounding board for your continued growth — and to challenge you when necessary. Additionally, you should be the most approachable that you have ever been so you can help your team adopt the same attitudes. Level 5 Leader’s main two characteristics are being humble with great resolve. You give all that you are AND you remain resolved to always doing the right thing — always.
Now ask yourself, who is going to replace you? If you haven’t determined that, you haven’t finished your job. Think about it right now… if you cannot pick someone in your mind, you also haven’t done your job training and raising them up. You should be working on 3-4 people from within the organization that you have been intentionally growing and mentoring to take over and fill top leadership positions. You can see their hearts and you can feel good about leaving the organization to someone who will love the team and lead them selflessly. Granted, most of us are probably not even Level 2 Leaders yet — but when you get there, you will need to do these things.
Quotes:
“Above all else, good leaders are open. They go up, down, and around their organizations to reach people. They don’t stick to established channels. They’re informal. They’re straight with people. They make a religion out of being accessible.”
~ Jack Welch
Action: Here’s the takeaway: You must grow yourself much more deeply than this simple description of Level 5 Leadership. Go purchase John Maxwell’s book, The 5 Levels of Leadership and read it at least once every year. Mastermind it with one or more potential leaders. Get a group of people together and I’ll mastermind it with you. You must dig very deep into leadership — even if you’re only going to lead yourself.
Pray: Lord, Help me learn and display your attributes in these character traits!
Watch my short video on influence: https://WeAreCaris.com/influence-video/
That’s it! Much love and blessings, see you tomorrow!
Watch my short video on Influence below…
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