Outgrow your role
It’s a new year, and I’m about to celebrate ten years of employment, which is by far the longest I have ever worked in one place. This combination has definitely generated some increased reflection, which I’m enjoying. Yesterday, I was in a coaching session with a young and inspiring leader, and she asked me about a comment I had made in a lecture. I stated that one of the problems with growing as a leader is that sometimes you outgrow your role or organization. She asked what I meant by the statement. I have heard both John Townsend and John Maxwell make this statement and have repeated it several times, but until that meeting, I hadn’t dug into how it works and why it’s possible.
I’ve written and taught about leadership for a while, and I love Randall Stutman’s definition of leadership as making people and situations better. However, to intentionally grow, a deeper understanding of what it takes to lead well must be understood. In my recent work on Thermodynamic Development, breaking competencies down into easier-to-learn and master skills reinforces my position that for growth to be maximized, an individualized path must be built, and that has generated this thinking.
In the simplest forms, a leader’s effectiveness can be measured across a vertical and horizontal axis. In this thinking, the horizontal axis measures competency and character. This axis is very subjective, and that’s okay; it’s still effective for understanding growth. Competency is unique to the leader’s role; there will be some universal cross-over competencies like team building and people development. If I were placed into a CFO role, my competency would be very low on many critical job functions despite my ability to perform tasks such as problem-solving. Competency is only half of the horizontal axis because it’s insufficient to create success. The other aspect of the horizontal is character. Character isn’t talked about or written about nearly as much as competency, but it’s every bit, if not more important. I’ve heard character defined as the skills needed to live your values. Using Dr. John Townsend’s approach, character is best observed as a combination of PERSONAL (Baseline thoughts, feelings, and emotions), PEOPLE (Relationships), and PERFORMANCE (Ability to get what needs to be done, done). Our character isn’t fixed but is observed as our abilities to connect relationally, be healthily individual, have a realistic view of the world, and recognize authority well. Character’s impact on leadership can’t be overstated.
The vertical axis in this model is taken directly from John Maxwell’s 5 Levels of Leadership. Maxwell states and defends that leaders move between five levels of leadership in their roles. Level 1 is position; people follow simply because of your title. Even great leaders start here in a new position because people will be unsure of their motives and abilities. Level 2 is permission; people follow because they know the leader cares about them. Level 3 is production; people follow because the leader gets stuff done and accomplishes goals. Level 4 is people development; people follow because not only do goals get accomplished, but they also become more in the process. Level 5 is Pinnacle, and people follow because of what the leader represents.
So, let’s look at how this works together. In this first diagram, the lower star represents a leader in their first day of a leadership role. They are at level 1 on the vertical axis because they simply have the new position. They are at a five on the competency & character axis because of a combination of the unknown of their tasks, as well as internal issues contributing to their thoughts, relationships, and performance.
After a period of time, and probably intentional work, we eventually see them at a four on the vertical and seven on the horizontal. While the character and competency axis is subjective, they have learned some job functions and have done some personal work on their character. This hypothetical person is a great leader, and organizations and teams would love to have them. Because they’ve done a great job, they’ve been asked to take a new role and lead a new team.
We can see that character and competency growth from the position went with them. Obviously, the new role may have job- or task-specific competencies that will need to be learned and developed, but character growth remains steady, remains steady and many of the competency lessons of the last role translate into the new position.
So, how does a person outgrow their role or organization? A simple model could describe a higher position on the horizontal and vertical axis than their leader. In the diagram, a blurry red line represents operational tension because the task and work may be beneficial enough for the subordinate to stay in the role despite having grown higher levels of influence than their leader. Also, factors such as the economy and non-organizational issues could influence the person to continue to follow. However, given the right opportunity, this person won't stay in this position forever.
What does this mean to us as leaders? It means we owe it to our people to be continually growing. To actively work on developing our character where it’s weakest and continue to develop the brightest spots in our competency. I personally recommend the Thermodynamic Development approach to growth, but I am biased :-).
Where do you see yourself on the vertical and horizontal axis?
Be Blessed, and keep growing.