Preparing to facilitate a Leadership Development Process that will last 6 months with 13 leaders and going through my materials. I came across this great list from John Adair’s How to Grow Leaders
How to grow leaders – a quick guide for orchard owners
1. Select good seed or stock. Choose people with natural potential for the generic role of leader.
Look for tell-tale signs that the spark of leadership is within them.
2. Prepare the soil. Check out your corporate culture. Does it grow or stunt leadership growth? Plough up yesterday’s paradigms and mindsets about management.
Are the fields the right size? Have you got the structure right?
3. Enrich the earth by fertilizing and watering. Make sure the sun of good values – integrity, honesty, justice, fairness, etc… has an unhindered path – cut out the jungle foliage that obscures the sun and the stars.
Invest in people – the better the people, the better the leaders will be.
4. Rotate the crops. Give leaders a variety of challenges and opportunities.
5. Let the fields lie fallow. Not all trees bear fruit every year. Even the best fields need to lie fallow. Give leaders time to think, to reflect and to catch up with themselves.
6. Observe where the plants thrive. A leader who struggles in one field or sector of it may be successful in another.
What is the leader’s ecological niche? Where will he thrive?
7. Prune the dead wood. Simplify, cut back to the trunk. Abandon the practices and ideas that don’t work. Go back to basics.
8. Let the taproots go deep. The water of inspiration lies deep underground. The trees that grow and bear fruit year by year have deep taproots.
Which of these is your favorite?
In what ways do you grow leadership within organizations?
What ways is your company already making purposeful steps to grow leaders?
michael cardus is create-learning
photo by scrumpyboy
Great list! I will definitely use this and share it with others.
Hi Mike,
This is a great analogy!
#6 is my favorite. I’ve led plenty of teams, with varying levels of success. I’m slowly getting a better picture of my niche.
For step #1, what are those tell-tale signs that someone has leadership potential?