Book Summary: Launching a Leadership Revolution by Orrin Woodward and Chris Brady
Everything rises and falls on leadership. The fate of our country in the coming years will be determined by jobs and small/medium businesses. To effectively manage these organizations, leadership is required. Orin and Chris do an excellent job profiling the five stages of leadership.
Why is this important to me?
I don’t want to waste your time and I want you to get useful information from this summary. With that said, there are a few components I want to point out as it relates to influence. Leaders sell the gap between their vision and today’s reality. If the vision is compelling and the leader has character and integrity, people will follow.
People need to be capable, honest and hungry to become leaders. Leadership takes effort. I can tell you personally that leading people is not easy. I’m also a budding leader with a lot to learn. To win a share of people’s minds, you have to influence them and compel them to the cause.
Launching a Leadership Revolution discusses 5 levels of influence on the leadership ladder. For the sake of time, I will profile each part briefly. Leadership can be like herding cats because people are different. To this end, the goal of a leader is to unite people to a common cause.
1. Training – Continuous training is necessary now for any field, especially leading. You have to commit to learning every day. This should be a habit. You can’t influence people en masse if you’re not willing to take the hits and do the work. Learning leads to better performance and enlightenment. Without it, you cannot lead. The world today is too complicated for ignorance. You have to learn all your life.
2. Execution – It’s not the number of hours you put into an endeavor, but the effort you put into the hours. Leaders must perform. NFL coaches have a three-year tenure. If they don’t perform and build a winning team, they get fired. People expect performance and want to follow winners. Everyone remembers Muhammad Ali and George Foreman. Do you remember Ernie Shavers or Jerry Quarry? These two fighters were good, but they weren’t champions. There are several keys to efficiency: 1. The 80/20 Rule – focus on what matters and discard what doesn’t and 2. Parkinson’s Law – Focuses on efficiency and states that the task swells to the appointed time. Shorten the deadlines of the tasks and they will be completed. In college, how many of you completed coursework in the last week before it was due? This is Parkinson’s law in its negative effect. Coursework can be done in one week instead of 15 weeks.
3. Leadership – “To serve is to rule” – Leaders know they must serve others to get the job done. Selfish selfish leaders will usually be stuck in positional leadership, which is the lowest rung of the leadership ladder. Lee Iacocca was a good leader, but not a great leader. He lost his focus and started focusing on his ego after Chrysler’s turnaround. His focus became too self-centered. To be a great leader, you must be humble and put the team before yourself. If you look at really great leaders, you will see this trait – Mother Teresa, Mahatma Gandhi and George Washington.
4. Developing Leaders – Developing other leaders is the real key multiplier effect. Having great people leading allows organizations to grow. In business, it’s the difference between being self-employed and owning a business that doesn’t require your full attention. Do you have a local dentist? Usually what you see at these practices are very successful people doing all the work. They make a great life, but they can’t get past a certain point because THEY can only do so much work and there are only so many hours in the day. Compare that to Warren Buffett. Warren owns several businesses and does not operate any of them. He buys them with excellent management and leadership. It provides additional leadership and capital for business expansion and scale. This is one of the benefits of developing leaders.
5. Developing leaders who develop leaders – This is the holy grail of leadership. Orin gives a great example in the book. Christianity is 2000 years old and it is primarily because of the Apostle Paul. His ability to develop leaders who develop leaders is unparalleled in history.
Starting a Leadership Revolution is a good book worth your time to study. Orin and Chris do a good job of profiling the key aspects of influence and leadership.
I hope you found this short video summary useful. The key to any new idea is to incorporate it into your daily routine until it becomes a habit. Habits are formed in just 21 days. One thing you can take away from this book is to learn. The key ingredient to jumpstarting your leadership skills is learning. Make it a daily habit to read a few pages, watch educational videos, and tap into associations outside of your comfort zone.
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