Good leaders develop gradually

Robin Sharma, a renowned author, leadership coach and much sought-after speaker, is quoted saying, “Leadership is not about executive position or title. It is about connection and influence. At its highest, leadership is all about adding value to the world and blessing lives through the work you do.” This builds on our discussion last week about leadership and titles. 

As we continue in the leadership simplified series, our desire is to help demystify the questions around leadership. This week we dive into another topic on our leadership evolves topic and reflect on our personal leadership journeys. I have been ruminating on the quote above, specifically the value that I am adding to the world and if the work that I do is blessing those around me and by extension, the world. In previous articles, we have spoken about leadership being tied to your purpose. The quote above brings this into context. 

Your life purpose in and of itself is not to be a leader. Leadership is merely a platform for you to fulfil that assignment upon your life, aka purpose, the reason why you are here, the value you add to all those you meet on your leadership journey.

How does this tie into the evolution of leadership? I am glad you asked. I present to you, John C. Maxwell. As you may have guessed by now, we are part of the amazing Maxwell Leadership Certified Team. He often speaks about his own evolution from Pastor to public speaker to leadership coach to author to creating a platform where all these areas of his own evolution are expressed in leading the Maxwell Leadership Team.

One thing that was always clear to him was his calling to serve, regardless of the platform he was in. The principle of servant leadership is very much the bedrock of all he does. Relating to servant leadership, Maxwell says: “Why you lead and the way you lead are important. They define you, your leadership, and ultimately your contribution.”

You may say that his background and origins placed him at an advantage that allowed him to evolve in his roles. Let me share another story of another person who has been fearless, her own evolution of what defines a leader. She started her leadership journey in one of the leading Ugandan law firms. When her family relocated first to Tunis and then to Abidjan for work, she evolved into an influencer, before it was even popular, through her blog - The fulfilled life blog. 

In addition, she used her experiences and was able to author a book, The Expatriate Wife: Did Relinquishing My Career Mean Losing My Identity? Today she continues to evolve and is now a transformational leadership coach and also co-hosts a growing annual leadership conference known as the African Women Leadership Summit which will hold its 3rd event in September under the theme ‘Dare to be different’. So, you see she started out her leadership journey in legal practice and evolved into a different area of human resource management and development. Today she continues to evolve and is a consultant as an ethics officer.  

To bring this into our present circumstances, since you may be tempted to think this whole notion of evolving as a leader happened in the days of old, allow me to present to you Dauda Kavuma. He is the founder of Ghetto Kids Foundation. You may have heard of the talented dancing phenomenon of kids that recently took Britain’s Got Talent by storm. His story is one of inspiration. Having once been a street kid himself, he graduated as a mathematics teacher in 2007 and he has used his experiences to bring change in the lives of the Ghetto kids.  

Indeed, there is no shortage of examples that we can share. My challenge to you this week is to deeply reflect and ask yourself, with all the potential within you, what areas are you leaving untapped that will enhance your leadership journey to help achieve your full potential and purpose? 

Elizabeth Kangwagye is a transformational leadership coach and trainer. [email protected]   Instagram: @elizabethkangwagye