Take an Athletic Approach to Leadership

Leadership takes work and practice. A company can not just snap its fingers and "poof": excellent leaders emerge. But rather, like everything else, good and solid leadership is developed through hard work. Sounds easy and the talk is good but the fact of the matter is extremely few organizations or mangers develop their leadership capacity. Nobody does the push ups to become better leaders.

I don't believe in the saying "she is a natural leader". I do think a person can inherently have natural leadership characteristics but that is a far cry from being a great leader. In fact, what does happen naturally is ineffective leadership. Most managers will decrease in leadership overtime. It is not a surprise to me that the number one reason people leave a company is because of the relationship with the managers.

Let's look at a couple of great sports leaders in two vastly different arenas. Peyton Manning, is NFL MVP and Superbowl winning quarterback for the Indianapolis Colts and Tiger Woods is arguably the best athlete ever and 13 time PGA major winning golfer. Two entirely different sports in that football is a team sport of 53 players and golf is an individual sport consisting of nothing but yourself.

Both Tiger and Peyton were born with natural talents and God given leadership traits. But so were many other people and some even better. What makes these two so different and so effective? They take an athletic approach to leadership. What does an athletic approach to leadership mean? For starters, they both have work ethic that is second to none. Tiger just plain out works all of his competition in mind, body, and spirit. He hits more balls than anybody else. He works on his body and fitness more than anybody else. And he also works his mind more than anyone else. That is why when he is leading going into the final round, he has NEVER lost. He simply has better leadership than any of his competition and he knows it and they know it.

Peyton Manning is similar to Tiger in that his work ethic is the best in the NFL. Peyton just won the Superbowl last year and reports say he took a few days off and he was back at it planning to win another one. Peyton works tirelessly on his communication skills with his team by being the first on the field and last to leave the field and by far most time in meeting rooms.

Sure Tiger and Peyton have natural skills but what makes them the best at what they do is because they take an athletic approach and they have SYSTEMS in place. They are students and constantly learning to become better.

How about you and your company? How much time is and energy is devoted towards becoming better leaders? Do you have a set plan to improve the leadership? Do you put in the hard work and do the push ups?

Without a system in place lead by experts to improve leadership at all levels, the fact is your company will not maximize its potential, productivity, and profitability.