Leaders are lifelong learners
But how does a busy leader juggle learning and everything else?
When I was 23 years old I became an Account Executive in an LA-based advertising agency that served nonprofit organizations. My job was to sell advertising campaigns to charities to help grow their supporter bases and generate revenue for their causes.
I reported at the time to the company’s head of business development. He was a young leader himself, but well ahead of me in his career, leadership, and professional development.
One of the things he taught me from day one on his team was the importance of creating a personal development and learning plan for my own growth.
Creating your own personal development and learning plan is critical for any leader who wants to grow and maximize their impact. It requires that you take an honest assessment of your own capabilities and knowledge, identify the gaps you have, and build a roadmap to help you address those gaps. It also means knowing what you’re really good at and finding ways to amplify those strengths so that you can become even more effective in those areas.
Over the years this has taken many forms in my own life, including things like:
Subscribing to leadership development podcasts, blogs, newsletters, and other similar programs.
Following key leaders in philanthropy, business, technology, and other sectors so that I can learn and absorb key insights from each of them to help me become a better leader in my own right.
Investing in business mastermind groups (I’m personally a part of Brand Built and Convene) where I can engage with other business leaders, entrepreneurs, fundraisers, investment bankers and philanthropists and learn from them and build community with other leaders.
Invest in specific skill development and training opportunities. Recently I did this by hiring Darren McKee to coach me on how I can be more effective on LinkedIn, as an example.
Read great books that challenge your own leadership. Some of my favorites include Forged in Crisis, Developing the Leader Within You, Lead Like it Matters to God, Good Leaders Ask Great Questions, The Trusted Advisor, and Start With Why.
Write. Whether you keep a private journal to process your thoughts, blog on the web somewhere, write industry articles, author a newsletter like this one, or even write books. The process of writing helps you to clarify your thinking, process a variety of informational inputs, and distill what you’re learning into actionable ideas and thoughts.
Share. This one has been another key for me in my own leadership development. The true testament to whether you’re learning something deeply is whether you can teach it to someone else. I make it a habit to share information, teach and train others regularly. In part this is my commitment to help build up other leaders. But it also serves as a catalyst to deepen my own learning and understanding.
We all learn and process information differently. There is no single “right way” for you to learn as a leader. But…what experience has taught me is that every great leader invests deeply in their own personal and professional development.
Whether you like to learn by listening to audio books, participating in mastermind groups, or reading and writing articles, I hope this encourages you to be intentional about your own learning and development plan.
The more you develop yourself as a leader, the more you can pour into and develop other future leaders. And that means you’ll make an even bigger impact around the world.
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