Empowerment and release

Multiplying leadership across an organisation.  

Milestones are constructed to provide reference points along the road, and they are also used to mark specific points along a timeline or journey. 

One such milestone in my journey along the leadership pathway was attendance at a program called the Million Leaders Mandate.  This was a training program developed by John Maxwell and his team to develop the leadership skills of one million leaders around the world and in every nation.  For me, this was not only an opportunity to develop my personal leadership skills, but it also represented the start of a desire to encourage Leadership Skills to be developed in others around me. 

“Leaders who develop followers can only grow their organisation one person at a time. But leaders who develop leaders multiply their growth”~ John Maxwell

The Million Leaders Mandate was launched in 2003 and came to Europe in 2005, and that’s where my passion for investing in the lives of those around me was cultivated and grew stronger.  Over the course of the next three years, we met to study leadership principles led by John Maxwell Associate Trainers on a journey of discovery to becoming students of leadership with a view to multiplying that investment by investing in others. 

This process led to being invited to both develop and to deliver a variety of courses in the field of Leadership in my local community, college and university.   Throughout this period I have been involved in leading small group coaching events on a regular basis.

Since then I have also had the privilege of investing time with several charities as Chair and Vice-Chair of Trustees, in the leadership of several industry and business networking groups, and as a non-exec director of a national organisation.  I have also been privileged to be the personal coach and mentor to the leaders of several local, national and international organisations.    

Effective leadership is a position to occupy, not a position to hold.  The position for some is temporary and short-lived and for others longer term and prolonged.  For some, it is an occasional challenge when new needs arise, and for others, it is a way of life.  This is what I know: we are all called to be a leader or something at some time in our lives, and we can all become a better leader.  My passion is helping people to learn how to become a better leader where they are whenever they need to. 

“We don’t find great leaders, we build them. Then we empower them and let them lead!”~ Craig Groeschel

Leadership is inevitably involved with change; it has to do with a process of moving from point A to point B.  The leader is the catalyst without whom the change would either not happen or not happen as effectively.  Effective leaders learn the art of making change happen, of identifying the obstacles in the way, and of overcoming those obstacles successfully.

When leading an organisation, initiative or enterprise a leader will inevitably introduce a culture to that organisation, and that culture can do one of three things:

• Inhibit leaders from growing
• Allow leaders to emerge
• Encourage leaders to flourish

In order to introduce a culture where leaders are encouraged to flourish there needs to be a combination of both clear communication and complete trust.  The objectives, the vision and mission, of the change need to be clearly understood and embraced by all involved, and the people helping to move the organisation towards those objectives need to have the trust from their leaders to engage with the mission.  They need to know and understand the Why and the What of the vision and mission, and then be trusted to develop and lead the How within their team.

"Leaders become great, not because of their power, but because of their ability to empower others."~ John Maxwell

When they have clarity on the vision and mission yet have no trust then they won’t feel empowered as they will either be fearful of doing anything on their own initiative and waiting to be told what to do and how to do it.  On the other hand with trust but no clarity then they will be diligently working on perhaps a very valid aim, just to find that the aim is not aligned with the main objectives and thus produces at best distraction or perhaps even delivering division within the team leading to the disintegration of the team.

With both clarity and trust, everyone will be aligned and moving in the same direction with eagerness and enthusiasm and leadership will be multiplied to greatest effectiveness.