Obviously I’m getting old when I can recall television advertisements that others can’t.  But I seem to recall an ad for hair care in which the model, (I think it was Rachel Hunter), said about fixing split ends, "It won’t happen overnight, but it will happen."  It was a pretty trite statement in the context of hair care but it’s absolutely accurate when it comes to improving our leadership.

John Maxwell says there are four phases of leadership growth:

1. I Don’t Know What I Don’t Know;
2. I Know What I Don’t Know;
3. I Grow and Know – It Starts to Show
4. I Simply Go Because of What I Know

All too often we do our best but we’re plodding along not really knowing what we don’t know.  This makes us ineffective and unless we take steps to rectify it we’ll never get to where we want to get to.

If you’re a leader, at any stage of leadership life, (brand new or very experienced), and at any level of your organisation, (top, middle or just leading yourself at this stage), you need to be intentional about improving.

The following are some resources I recommend.  But I invite your own recommendations in comments to this post as I’m sure my readers would be grateful.

• The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership by John Maxwell
• The 360 Degree Leader also by John Maxwell
• Dynamic Spiritual Leadership by J Oswald Sanders

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