“You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with,” – Jim Rohn
I often think of this quote and am grateful to have the amazing family and team to spend my time with. It’s really interesting to me how true it is that we attract who we are, because when I was pushing and climbing and focused on achieving, the people we were attracting into our organization were much the same. But as I began to pause and look around, and learn about what leadership is, there began to appear an incredible fulfillment as I began intentionally shifting from being a ladder climber to being a ladder builder.
My reasons were not predetermined, but rather as a result of finally being done with learning the same lessons over and over again. I think any problems we are facing in our organization, or in our lives, are here to teach us a lesson. They will keep appearing in different forms until we get to the root of the message and grow or change. How many times do I need to stub my toe on the hand weights that are sitting on the corner by the bed before I get the message and move them? When will I learn that if I am not focusing on my food and exercise I will feel crappy? When will I finally remember that blowing up never has the desired effect? When will I learn that the best way to grow our organization is to grow our people?
John Maxwell often says “To add growth, lead followers. To multiply growth, lead leaders.” The impact and effectiveness you have when you are creating leaders, not followers, is compounding. Every leader’s level of success is determined by those closest to him. This is your inner circle, the people you rely on to help you get things done, turn to for support, and seek advice from. In our organization, this consists of the leadership in each of my locations, the managers and key employees that are operating our businesses, the team within our team. In a smaller business, this may mean your entire staff.
Put it this way, if you add 5 superstar followers, lets call them “10’s” to your team, you have 10+10+10+10+10. The effectiveness of your team is at 50. But when you begin developing leaders by spending time intentionally mentoring them, giving them added responsibilities, give credit when things go well and hold them accountable when they don’t, you will begin to see the benefit of compounding. Your 5 superstars who are leaders’ effectiveness is now 10 x 10 x 10 x 10 x 10, or 100,000. I don’t know about you, but I like that math.