I was watching the television show Shark Tank the other night and was reminded of how true the principle is that great leadership mostly boils down to how influential you are. The product that popped up for the “sharks” to evaluate was a big hit and all of the entrepreneurs wanted a piece of the pie. One by one, they went through their virtual roll-a-dex about what they had to offer in terms of their connections. They hardly even mentioned their own knowledge in a particular subject (probably because they didn’t have much), but what they understood is that what they had to sell was a high commodity…their influence to sway the right people to invest in the right product and then take their cut.
So many times in leadership we get confused by DOING more instead of gaining influence. We probably get our focus on “doing” because it is much easier to learn something ourselves to build our repertoire rather than connect enough people together to create an infrastructure of skill.
As leaders there are certain things that we simply must do, but right on the other side of the word “must”, lies a long list of things that we shouldn’t be doing. Everything on that list is a glaring reminder of where we are lacking in our leadership influence.
It’s not always a fun conversation to have with yourself, but that’s my challenge for you today as a leader. What are you DOING in your leadership that is robbing someone else of being involved in a great organization? What can you let go of to create a deeper and broader team around you? How about relating this to parenting…how are you releasing responsibility to your kids to help them grow and have ownership? Maybe you just “want it done right, so you’ll do it yourself”? How can you let go of some of what you are DOING to take a more managerial role of BEING in the framework that God has given you?