Leadership Levels

This is episode 173 of the Empowered Team Podcast.

Hey there. Are you looking to grow as a leader or grow leaders on your team? If so, then our leadership series is for you. It's running all year long. It's free webinars to teach you about various topics in leadership that can really expand your growth, elevate your leadership, and be able to really serve those around you. If that's something for you, then opt in to our leadership series, our free webinars that will be going on all this year.

Welcome to the Empowered Team Podcast, where we explore how to optimize your performance in career, sport and life. And now your host, executive coach and life strategist, Kari Schneider.

Welcome, welcome empowered people. It is a new month and therefore a new topic. And this month's topic is going to really kick off a series of leadership topics and webinars over this whole year. So this month we're talking about leadership levels. This is such a powerful topic because we have been affected by leadership in every possible way, in every area of our life. Whether we've been influenced someone. Someone has always been influencing us, whether we realized it or not. At any level of our life, we've been influenced by someone else. And that person has been our leader. And maybe we've even led ourselves. So this month's topic is all about leadership levels. So the definition of a leader, when I looked up online, did my little Google search on what, what is the actual definition of a leader? I was very, very disappointed. What I came up with in this search was a leader is the person who leads or commands a group, organization or country. And that just had me fall flat. The person who leads or commands a group, organization or country. Now for me, and I think for most people, especially people who care about growth, serving others, and really making a difference in the world, that definition of leadership is pretty empty. So I created my own definition of leadership. A leader. A leader is someone who influences others to want to act on or believe in a vision that has been highlighted or created by the leader. I also deepened that definition with leadership. Leadership is not position, title or rank, but rather a way of being, clarity of vision and integrity of action that inspires others to follow their vision. So I'm going to read those two again, the leader and the leadership. A leader is someone who influences others to want to act on or believe in a vision that has been highlighted or created by the leader. Leadership is not position, title or rank, but rather a way of being, clarity of vision and integrity of action that inspires others to follow their vision. So that is what I came up with. I may modify that further, but that has come from 25 years of working in with leaders in leadership roles, being led by others, and also many, many hours of studying leadership as well. So I think back in terms of some of the roles that I've been in and some of the roles that other leaders have been in leading me and what I've witnessed over time. And there's so many different types of leaders that we can all be influenced by that. It's not a pinpointed definition of just someone who leads or commands a group, organ, organization or country. It's not that clear. It's not that simple because leadership is so complex and all encompassing in so many different areas. I think of the leader who is the head coach of a high performance team, who really is not a great leader and the whole team revolts and turns on that so called leader and doesn't follow, actually complains, actually has that person's job taken away because they weren't an effective leader. So they might have had the title of being in a leadership role, but they weren't a true leader to the group they were supposed to lead. Or I think of another leader on a team who doesn't have any sort of title, but their work ethic, their massive amount of example setting in front of the team set a leadership role even though they didn't have the title, or someone who does have a title, say they're captain of a team and in that leadership role they do all the things, they show support for the teammates, they lead by example. They might actually request others to do certain things in that leadership role that they have. So they really exemplify the title that they have by taking the actions of a leader or with the title that they have. And then there are other leaders who are quite introverted. I think of a client I had who owned multiple companies and was so quiet and so soft spoken, yet so powerful. He was very introverted, but very caring, gentle and action oriented. He had very high, high standards, yet wasn't pushy upon others. So his leadership style was completely different. And yes, he had the title of owner or CEO and in that title it's a leadership title. And his leadership style was completely different than what most people would assume for that kind of rank or position or title. So I want to open up to you the opportunity of looking at leadership from multiple angles. And I've learned a lot about leadership over the past 25 years and especially over the past five years. And one of the things I've learned about leadership is that there's four levels of depth and four levels of breadth. And I've expanded on those levels of depth in order to model after what I learned in sport for so many years. In sport, there's a man that researched, and his name's Istvan Bali, and Istvan Bali researched for many years on the athlete development, and he created what was called an athlete development model. And in creating the athlete development model, it was so powerful for so many sports that they modeled it out specifically for their sport. So what it would mean for a gymnast to be at the level one, or what it would mean for the level four of the athlete development model. And without going into it in too much detail, the levels or the names for these levels for the athlete development model were the following. Initially it was learning to train. So that was the first level, learning to train and then training to train, then training to compete and then training to win. So learning to train, training to train, training to compete and competing to win. So these different levels. And there's more to it than that, but I want to give you an outline of what it's involved in that athlete development model. And what I did was develop a leadership model, a leadership development model that I've modeled after the athlete development model, because I've worked within that athlete development model for so many years. And I've also been able to work with so many leaders for so many years, various levels of leadership, leadership and various levels of leaders. So I developed out a depth of leadership with these four levels. The first one is learn to lead. And learn to lead is quite literally level one leadership. Level one leadership encompasses leading yourself. And one of the most important parts of being able to lead yourself is also learning to follow. And these are some of the topics that people don't pay attention to in leadership, because many people think that leadership is simply commanding a group. Just like that original definition pointed to. Commanding that group means that we're a leader, when in reality there are so many leaders we have right next to us who are doing so many things to influence others. And that in itself is leadership. So the first level of leadership that I've named learning to lead. The second level is lean in to lead. This would be level two. Leaning into lead simply means being able to lead one other person. And this can happen as young as the age of five years old. Think of when you're five years old and you've just learned to tie your shoe and your friend hasn't learned to tie their shoe yet. But they see that you can tie their shoe and, or their shoe and your shoe, you can tie shoes and they can't. But the fact that you can and the fact that you might help them or show them how to tie the shoe has you leading them. So a 5 year old can be a level 2 leader. A 5 year old can be a level 1 leader too by being able to lead themselves. Maybe they learn how to dress themselves or learn how to do something very specific with scissors or art or some new skill. So level one leadership can happen from the tiniest, tiniest human all the way up to the most elderly human in being able to lead yourself. And level two leadership can happen at all ages as well in being able to lead or influence one other just by your way of being. And this is why in my definition of leadership, that's why I put in the phrases by using a way of being, a clarity of vision and integrity of action, those things will implicate serving another person. They'll influence those around you. They'll have a vision that others can follow along. So this leads us to level three leadership and what I've called this one is lasting leadership. This is a scenario where in lasting leadership, the individual has developed in such a way that their clarity of vision, their integrity of action and their way of being influences a whole group. That means that they've grown, they've grown a lot, they've grown individually and they've been able to master their own leadership of themselves in a way that it influences not just one other person, but multiple people. And that would be an example of lasting leadership. So think of that owner of multiple companies, that quiet person. He had a way of being that was clear that he cared about others. It was clear that his standards were very high and he followed them himself. He wasn't a person who was going to tell other people something to do and he wasn't going to do it himself. He was a hard worker who led by example and also was able to delegate to others in a way that had them feel acknowledged, important, special. He was one who easily exemplified level three leadership, lasting leadership. The reason I coined it as lasting leadership is when you're leading number of people, then there's a far greater likelihood of the leadership or the teaching or the way of being to live longer simply because more people are affected and they're likely to use the the same habits or ways of being or instructions that you've given ongoing in the future. So it becomes a lasting leadership. And level four Is love of leadership. Level four really exemplifies legacy. If someone reaches the depth of level four leadership, it means that they're able to lead that group. Their vision is so clear and the others buy into that vision so wholeheartedly that that vision is going to happen whether that leader is present or not. Their influence, their clarity of vision, their integrity of action, their ways of being is so powerful. Not to overpower other people, but rather to empower other people, rather to serve other people, rather to create a legacy that lives on not only after they're gone, but when they're not present in the moment. Because those that they lead believe so strongly in their leadership or in their vision that they're going to continue that action going on, whether that person is watching them or not. It speaks to a level of integrity and leadership that goes into legacy. It goes into something that's long lasting, that lives beyond whatever that person's original intent was. We can think of multiple leaders that have existed in our past who may not be doing the same thing that they used to be doing. And yet their legacy lives on. Think of Mother Teresa, Winston Churchill, Oprah Winfrey, Martin Luther King, Mahatma Gandhi. So many people in our history have had a legacy far beyond what their actions were because they were so powerful in delivering a vision that other people wanted to buy into. No one was forced to. Other people wanted to buy into that vision, that clarity and that way of being. And that is level four leadership. It's a level of legacy that continues on. And it always. That level of leadership is always about service. It's always about purpose. Service, leadership, a greater good, a greater purpose, giving to other people. And that's why it lasts. Because ultimately that speaks to human fulfillment. That's the kind of leadership that has massive impact for years to come, maybe forever if they're living in history based on the leaders that I mentioned. So in this month, normally we talk about romance, we talk about relationships, and leadership is such a powerful position in that as well. So it's not to neglect our relationships or neglect romance, but really to exemplify leadership as being the person that is clear and integral and can give to others and committed to continuing to grow themselves in order to help others. That really is leadership. So this month, if this is intriguing to you, to develop yourself as a leader, if this is a topic that is powerful, to develop people on your team, the groups you work with, if leadership is a key topic for anything that you're involved with, then this year we have something so powerful for you. It's our leadership series that is going to go on for seven different webinars that are free for the entire year of 2022. So every month or two months we'll highlight topics that will be all about leadership that can serve you personally or can serve your teams. Topics like lead yourself to lead others, Learning to follow leadership within the team Struggling creates deep learning Learning to lead or even leading reluctant leaders, the introverts who are powerful leaders within groups Creating the culture identity Leading culture Leadership legacy, Greater purpose. So many incredible topics that can serve you as a leader and serve your team in their leadership roles in their leadership legacy. So this is what's coming up this year. We want to kick it off this month and and leadership is something that is so powerful that we all can step into, especially starting with ourselves. That's when we truly are able to feel our own personal power and be able to support others is by leading ourselves. So today step into leading yourself so tomorrow you can leave your legacy that really serves your purpose. Have a beautiful rest of your day. I hope this kicks off your month powerfully and so much love to you. If you enjoy listening to the Empowered Team Podcast, you'll love being on the Empowered Team. The Empowered Team runs year round. It is our group coaching and accountability program where we take mindset and physical performance concepts and break them down to usable action steps that optimize results. To learn more about our Empowered Leadership Coaching for business, our custom online physical training plans, and of course the Empowered Team Group coaching. Head to www.theempowered.ca.empowered learn more. That's www.theempowered. ca.empowered learn.