Four Ways to Develop Yourself as a Leader

Leadership Straight from Bill Hybels Four Ways to Develop Yourself as a Leader Four ways that you develop yourself as a leader. I wish I could say there were 17 ways. I can narrow it down to four. I say this in my sleep. I have to own it myself. Read everything you can read on the subject of leadership. Do not read recreationally about leadership. The biggest mistake leaders make. They read recreationally about leadership. You read about leadership as a discipline. You make a commitment to read one book every month or read one book every three months. You do not wait until you feel like it. You take a shower and eat every day. If I have been entrusted with the leadership gift I need to read a leadership book once during a period of time you choose. You read as a discipline. Second, go where leadership is taught. One of the reasons we believe in the Global Leadership Summit is because when you get world-class leaders and world-class communicators you learn world-class lessons. Three years later we are talking about a 30-minute talk we saw on a screen. It is influencing us today. That is the power of it. Go where leadership is taught. You go there as a discipline. You do not go thinking that it will be fun. You think that you need some input. Read everything you can read about leadership. Go where leadership is taught. Third, get around people who are ahead of you as leaders and ask them smart questions. The way I do this is I will contact someone who is ahead of me in leadership and say, "I have respected you and watched you. I will buy you lunch. I will ask you three questions. It will not take more than 45-60 minutes. No expectation beyond that. I am not going to ask you to 're-parent' me or be pen pal. I will not waste your time. You are ahead of me as a leader. I am going to ask you three questions and it will be a huge contribution to my life. May I buy you lunch?" The fourth is to keep leading whatever you are leading as intensely as you can lead it. Most of you are leading something. A high percentage of what you will learn as a leader comes from showing up to work every day... The phrase we use at Willow is we are all incessant tinkerers. If things are going good at Willow, we still show up every day and think that we can make it 2% better. We are incessant tinkerers. This is a staff value of ours. If anyone on our staff says, "I got it up and going. It is on cruise control and that is cool." It is not in our culture. There is always another 2% you can get out of anything. We want you to find that 2%. Make it stronger, faster. Make it available to more people. Make it deeper, Godlier. Nobody is allowed to be on cruise control. We are always tinkering to try to make something better for God's glory. Read everything you can read on leadership. Go where leadership is taught. Find someone who is ahead of you and ask them smart questions. Lead as best you can every day and you will get better.