The Path to Transformational Leadership: Expanding Your Reach of Influence
Transformational leadership is an approach in which a leader inspires and motivates team members to create positive changes within an organization. A transformational leader is able to develop goals that people are excited about, get others excited about their work, generate confidence and positivity in the workplace, implement flexibility and share a meaningful organizational identity with the people.
Leadership is about Influence. Your ability to influence is drastically reduced if you are stuck in the weeds as a “doer” and it’s even more detrimental to the organization if you are not focused on creating future transformational leaders.
In order to cultivate transformational leaders, you must expand your reach of Influence. This is foundational. A key strategy for growing your Influence is using the 3 D’s of the Leadership Progression of Influence model to create awareness around where you spend your time driving contribution to those around you.
The model starts off with the first D, being a DOER. We all have a certain amount of Influence as a Doer. However, our capacity to get things done will limit our reach of Influence. Once we've reached our limit, our Influence is minimized.
As you progress in the model—going from a Doer to a DELEGATOR—you increase both your Influence and your contribution. With this transition, your Influence will grow not only by guiding the things you are doing on your own but also the things you accomplish through others.
Similar to being a Doer, you will still have a limit on how influential you are as a Delegator. The moment you or your delegates hit capacity, you once again run into a ceiling on the amount of Influence you can apply. Which is why the third progression in the model has the greatest reach in Influence and contribution.
When you spend time as a DEVELOPER, you extend your Influence by sharing it. You will develop People (your team). You will develop Relationships across departments, organizations, and expand your sphere of Influence. Meanwhile, you will also develop Opportunities for your growth, your team’s growth, and the growth of the organization which in turn increases Influence.
While these elements of being a Developer create additional pockets of value as a leader, one place for exponential reach in Influence is developing future Leaders (Developers). Here your Influence will have unlimited reach as you position your contribution to aim others in extending their reach of Influence as well. As a long-time fan of John Maxwell’s book, The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership, this falls under Law # 20: The Law of Explosive Growth. Maxwell shares:
To add growth, lead followers.
To multiply growth, lead leaders.
Assess Where You Are
To leverage this concept, first create a baseline assessment of where you are today. Out
to the left of the 3 D’s, place a percentage of where you are currently spending your time. Then, ask yourself, “am I comfortable with those numbers and are they creating the levels of both Influence and contribution I desire?” If you have too much or too little in any of the areas, reflect on how to pivot your focus in the future. With strategic effort, the percentages can move towards your targeted levels.
A second exercise is to consider the role you are in today or the role you want to be in for the future. Quickly assess the percentage breakout you believe it takes to be effective in your current or future role and add them to the right of the 3 D’s. Compare them to the percentages you feel you are displaying today. If there is a discrepancy between the two, it will require additional reflection and targeted exercises for growth to help you leverage your Influence more strategically in your current role, or prepare you to transition successfully to that desired role in the future.
As with many ah-ha moments in our lives, once we can realize what we are doing, where our time is going and evaluate the impact of those choices, it puts us in a position of control and provides motivation for making needed change. These small changes will increase Influence and drive transformation in the organization.
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