The 5 Levels of Leadership: Level 3 – How To Be a Good Leader
Restored from the Empower Network archive (2011–2017), lightly edited to meet our current advertising standards. Views are the original author’s.
The 5 Levels of Leadership: Level 3 – How to Be a Good Leader
John C. Maxwell has been lecturing on the subject of leadership for over 30 years. His latest book, The 5 Levels of Leadership, combines everything that he has learned and taught about the levels of leadership.
If you missed the post on Level 2, you can find it here: /zrodreques/the-5-levels-of-leadership-level-2-how-to-be-a-good-leader/?id=zrodreques
3rd Level of Leadership: Production
In order to call yourself a leader, you must produce results. It doesn’t matter how much people like you, if you are not producing. Most people will get to Level 2, love what they do, and love the people they work with and therefore, will settle. Only 15-20% of people will actually advance to Level 3.
Why do most not make it to Level 3?
It is much easier to get along with people than to make things happen. We’ll spend time with people we enjoy being around and forget to ask the important questions: “Are we increasing our bottom line?”, “Are we making a profit?”, “Are we focused on an objective?” Asking these questions is hard, so many just don’t do it.
To be a good leader, you have to be someone who makes things happen. If you cannot make things happen in your life, if you cannot make a sale or profit, then you will never make anything happen in someone else’s life. And impacting others is what being a leader is all about.
How to Get From Level 2 to 3
To get from Level 2 to Level 3, you have to make a major change in how you think. The key is RESULTS – making things happen.
**People teach what they know. They reproduce what they are.**
A person with leadership potential may not move from Level 2 to 3. People enjoy being at Level 2. It’s wonderful! Everyone’s happy! Everyone likes you! It’s not easy to transition into Level 3.
Now, it is possible to make it to Level 3 without ever being on Level 2. Some leaders are just good producers, but they don’t relate well with people. If you are a good producer, you can keep producing and producing on your own for a while. However, you will not be able to do it for long. If you truly want to be a good leader, you have to connect with people.
“Leadership production models and sets the standard for others visually.”
It’s easy to get up and cast vision. Talking the talk is much easier than walking the walk. But people do not do what they hear. They do what they see. It makes no difference to anyone if you speak about values that you don’t live by. If you teach it, you must believe it. When people see what you are doing, they will begin to change. If you produce, people will follow because they have seen it in you. Don’t teach what you don’t believe and don’t teach what you don’t do.
How to Move from Level 3 to Level 4
To move up to Level 4, you need to make one major change: DON’T DO YOUR WORK ALONE. You need to take someone with you. You always need to be training and mentoring. Make a list of 10 people who would be available at any time to receive some training from you. This will change everything! Teach them what you do so they can teach others and so on. This will make you a great leader and prepare you to move to Level 4.
Much love,
Zippora Rodreques
P.S. Learn to be leader that you want to be!