When I Get To The Top, Then I'll Learn To Lead

Leadership is very similar. If you want to succeed, you need to learn as much as you can about leadership before you have a leadership position.

Good leadership is learned in the trenches. Leading as well as they can wherever they are is what prepares leaders for more and greater responsibility.

Becoming a good leader is a lifelong learning process. If you don’t try out your leadership skills and decision-making process when the stakes are small and the risks are low, you’re likely to get into trouble at higher levels when the cost of mistakes is high, the impact is far reaching, and the exposure is greater.

Mistakes made when you’re at the top cost the organization greatly, and they damage a leader’s credibility.

How do you become the person you desire to be? You start now to adopt the thinking, learn the skills, and develop the habits of the person you wish to be.

It’s a mistake to daydream about “one day when you’ll be on top” instead of handling today so that it prepares you for tomorrow. As Hall of Fame basketball coach John Wooden said, “When opportunity comes, it’s too late to prepare.”

If you want to be a successful leader, learn to lead before you have a leadership position.

A position gives you a chance. It gives you the opportunity to try out your leadership. It asks people to give you the benefit of the doubt for a while.

But given some time, you will earn your level of influence – for better or worse. Good leaders will gain in influence beyond their stated position.

Bad leaders will shrink their influence down so that it is actually less than what originally came with the position. Remember, a position doesn’t make a leader, but a leader can make the position.

To think that life “at the top” is easier to think the grass is greener on the other side of the fence. Being at the top has its won set of problems and challenges.

In leadership – no matter where you are in an organization – the bottom line is always influence.

You do not need to be the top dog to make a difference. Leadership is not meant to be an all-or-nothing proposition.

If being someplace other than the top has caused you great frustration, please don’t throw in the towel. Why? Because you can make an impact from wherever you are in an organization, even if you face additional obstacles.

Being a leader stuck in the middle brings many challenges. You can learn to navigate them.

Becoming an effective 360-Degree Leader requires principles and skills to lead the people above, beside, and below you in the organization. You can learn them.

Individuals can become better leaders wherever they are. Improve your leadership, and you can impact your organization. You can change people’s lives.

You can be someone who adds value. You can learn to influence people at every level of the organization – even if you never get to the top. By helping others, you can help yourself.


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