Back in 2019 even before COVID-19 hit Europe, the subject of “leadership“ turned into more and more interesting area of development for me. I bought a bunch of books from best-selling authors and started diving into the topic (that’s what I always do, when I want to learn something). Through my journey, I invited my friend Darren J. Ho, Founder of the Restored Leader, to join me and support me in my season of growth.

The books I read so far on leadership:

  1. The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership - John Maxwell
  2. How Successful People Think - John Maxwell
  3. Good Leaders ask Great Questions - John Maxwell
  4. The 15 Invaluable Laws of Growth - John Maxwell
  5. The Power of Presence - Christi Hedges
  6. Confession of a Public Speaker - Scott Berkun

The very essence of leadership, as most authors summarize it, is to first “lead yourself well“. That by itself has to be defined, of course, as I can interpret it in many different ways. But the point is, if I can’t lead myself well, then I’ll struggle with positively influencing others. That said, people will not trust me with leading organizations or leading their talent as a people manager.

What I think about leadership and what it means to me (leadership values) is more or less summarized in this article.

Add Value to People

That leadership value is one of the most important to me, because it is maybe the hardest to accomplish. By definition, all people have value, but not everyone treats people as valuable (e.g. genocide, oppressive regimes, war).

“Do not try to become a person of success but try to become a person of value.” - Albert Einstein

“People who add value to others do so intentionally. I say that because to add value, leaders must give of themselves and that rarely occurs by accident.” — John C. Maxwell

My approach to adding value:

  • Just sit and listen - people love someone to listen to them

  • Be present and intentional

  • Teach them something valuable

  • Treat them with respect and as someone above me

  • Help them with what you have and how you can

In my leadership journey, I’ve helped many people start in an industry that’s hard to penetrate from outside. But I did it with love for people and intention to add value, not for personal gain.

Whichever way you decide to go about adding value to others, the end goal is always to lift people up.

Outstanding leaders always lift others up.

Work Hard

Working hard is a value that my father taught me when I was still a kid. At 10 years of age, I was already helping my father in his carpenter workshop by making furniture for his customers. The things he taught me back then are still extremely valuable in my leadership journey today.

There’s a say - “Work smart, not hard“, but I say do both. Of course, that doesn’t mean work = professional & paid work, as work has many dimensions depending on what you do and why you do it.

An important lesson I learned through my leadership journey is that every time I failed at working hard, I also failed at leading myself well.

Build Relationships

“Leadership is all about the relationship“ - that’s what my Leadership Coach and excellent friend Darren J. Ho thought me. And that’s where I’ve got it wrong many times - I thought that networking is the same as building relationships with people. But the fact is, I needed much more than just networking to establish a good relationship with people.

I’ll go a little deeper here - the art of building relationships is like making a coffee (credits Darren J. Ho):

The Espresso relationship - it takes 60s to make a cup of Espresso.

This type of relationship is casual and manifest itself as a work/professional, teacher/student and so on. It doesn’t require much effort to maintain the relationship and the return of invested time usually is low.

The French Press relationship - it takes 90s to make a cup of French Press coffee.

This type of relationship is deeper than the Espresso one and manifests itself in friendships, special interest groups, the community I belong to, and so on. It requires more effort to maintain and develop.

The Poured Coffee relationship - it takes on average 7 minutes to make a cup of Poured coffee.

This is my inner circle of friends, family, and trusted advisors. That type of relationship is the deepest one and most demanding in time, but most rewarding. This is where I invest most of my time to nurture and develop them to become more and more meaningful.

Something that I realized at a later stage of my leadership journey was that I can add value to all of the above types of relationships.

My strategy of being successful in building relationships is to:

  • Manage Expectations
  • Be forgiving
  • Add value

Live Core Values

Core values differ from values in the following way - these are mine non-negotiable values that shape my life.

My core values are who I really am and what I stand for.

The way you engage with others at home, work and your community completely depends on your core values (whether you recognize it or not). They reflect who you really are.

Most of the leaders I know don’t even know what “core values” means, thus struggling to define what leadership means for them.

In my leadership journey, I recognized that living and protecting my core values is of a paramount importance.

Protect Core Values

Compromising what I stand for (core values) is repeatedly tested. At work place, at home and in my community, I’m often tempted to take shortcuts to achieve a short-term success. I notice that with the time passing, focusing on the big picture and protecting my core values brings long-term success.

This is powerful and builds in me a strong character.

Be Authentic

“Be yourself, everyone else is already taken.” - Oscar Wilde

Being authentic is not always easy, as this makes me vulnerable, as I’m imperfect. Being vulnerable, especially in the corporate world, is not desirable. That, however, is not holding me back, because by being authentic, people know what to expect from me.

An article from Harvard Business Review defined in a very structured way what authenticity really means:

https://hbr.org/2015/01/the-authenticity-paradox

I realized that authenticity is often mistaken with transparency - just because I’m authentic, doesn’t mean that people have to see through me.

Authenticity makes me human.

Always Learn

In the age of information, access to information is so much easier than just 30 years ago. I have to admit that I love learning, but not only by reading about new topics. Learning for me has a deeper meaning - I consider all situations in life as a learning opportunity. Whether I win or fail, I take it as a learning opportunity.

Right now, my main areas of learning & development are:

  • Leadership
  • High-performing lifestyle
  • Public speaking
  • Writing
  • Faith
  • Cyber Security in general

Every year, I set SMART goals for personal development and also for the development of my family. Like my family supports me in all I do, I give back to support them in what they do.

Big Picture Thinking

“To think Big Picture, you need to give yourself a permission to go a different way, to break new ground, to find new worlds to conquer“ - How Successful People Think, John Maxwell

This leadership value of mine is important not only to my professional life but also personal one. Being able to spot trends, identify paradigms and seeing the “Big Picture“ helps me with taking mission critical decisions. That’s why I love looking at data, identify patterns and be open to dive in completely different (than my professional) industries. And because we live in the age of data, it is much easier to identify trends and see the Big Picture. Developing that habit, however, is hard and requires a lot of discipline.

What helps me build that habit so far is to sit down and reflect. I often ask myself questions like - “Why am I doing this?“, “What’s the desired outcome?“, “What’s the big picture here?”. Then I journal and often do a retrospective on my journaling. That helps me to keep a focus on the Big Picture.

Here’s a list of resources I used to practice my “Big Picture Thinking“:

https://www.visualcapitalist.com/

https://trends.co/

https://trends.google.com/trends/explore

https://www.mckinsey.com/mgi/our-research/all-research

https://www.pwc.com/gx/en/ceo-agenda/ceosurvey.html

https://www.verizon.com/business/resources/reports/dbir/

https://www.fireeye.com/current-threats/annual-threat-report.html

https://www.forrester.com

https://www.gartner.com/en

I highly recommend the book “Signals“ by Jeff Desjardines, it’s one of the best-researched books I’ve ever seen (yes, the infographics are amazing) & read.

Now I’m asking myself the question - how far I can go?