Growth: Is Yours Directed or Not?

Growth, it’s the main topic of this week’s and next week’s podcasts 120 and 121: I have a detailed discussion with Kelle Corvin, where we talk about the importance of directing and planning your growth. Growth is perhaps the most important and least understood aspect of our leadership. When it is done methodically, intentionally and deliberately, it will yield big results! Both Kelle and I have experienced the importance of continuing to grow personally and professionally in our careers.  This blog as well as podcast offers insights into how to make growth a lifestyle.  

The reality is that you are going to grow regardless. If you visualize a new parking lot that was paved out of a field, you can imagine two realities one year later. Directed growth would mean that you would see a parking lot that is well-maintained and who’s landscaping has been “directed” to grow in a certain manner. Undirected growth would show a parking lot with over-grown landscaping that is hap-hazard at best and distracting to drivers at the worst. In each case, growth has occurred, but one is defined and orderly and shows real progress while the other does not.

In leadership, we decide whether to have directed or non-directed growth every day and, really, with every action. Your organization, your people and even you will grow daily. The question to ask yourself is if the growth is progressing in the right direction and in the right way. You see, growth naturally defaults to what is least painful and requires the least effort on the part of the person, people or organization that is involved.

So, what do successful and significant leaders do differently? Well first and foremost they direct the growth of themselves and others and, as a result, their organization grows in the right way and right direction. They recognize that when a leader stops growing, the people they lead start dying – immediately.”

Here are a few “sneak peaks” of the full 7 things we will discuss in next week’s podcast (121) that significant leaders do to create growth as a lifestyle:

• They understand that the job, the role is bigger than them. In their professional capacity, they realize that their job is performing a greater role for society. While any profession can claim this, there is no greater role than providing society with the peace of mind that effective law enforcement does. Personally, they recognize that the role of parent, spouse, family member is a larger role than they are personally, and they direct the growth of their personal growth and relational growth accordingly.

• They remember that the contributions made at work are bigger than you are personally. It’s stated that we spend something like 90,000 hours at work in our lifetime – that’s a lot of time and a lot of personal energy that is committed to growing an organization. So, ask yourself, what is your legacy going to be as a leader? Are you leaving the organization better than you found it? Has it grown to meet the needs of your community? Industry? Are the leaders you are leaving behind ready to meet the next round of challenges your industry, community and organization face?

• Significant Leaders recognize that their professional and personal experience are a result of their growth. They understand that situations and relationships change daily and work constantly to strategically grow themselves, their people, and their organization. As a leader, you are accepting responsibility to establish directed growth for yourself and those you lead. In doing so, your goal is to grow the organization in a positive direction that makes a positive impact.

I hope you will take the time to listen to next Monday’s podcast, 121, to get all 7. I will say that in wrapping up this week’s post, you will not succeed at any of them if you don’t do the one thing that will help you measure your growth – you’ve gotta keep score! Find a system that works for you personally. I use a journal and create a chart that I measure my success on 3-4 personal and professional development goals I have monthly. I reflect weekly on what is working and make adjustments for what is not. That way I always know what the goal is and where I am in achieving it.

My goal is to help each of you out there be the most effective and successful leader you can be. Growth is key to this and directed, intentional growth is where you will find success.

I’ll end with a John Maxwell quote, “The only way to make tomorrow better, is to grow today.”

Go make things happen!

Dean