Make Room To Grow

In this episode of the Reaching the Peak Podcast, I, Jeff Miller, delve into a crucial concept in leadership known as the "law of the lid," a principle introduced by my mentor, John Maxwell. This law suggests that a leader's effectiveness is capped at their own level of leadership. As I reflect on this idea, I emphasize the importance of personal growth and development in leadership roles.

Throughout the episode, I share insights from my observations of a remarkable leader whose organization consistently produced individuals who went on to achieve higher leadership positions elsewhere. The key takeaway from this observation is that these emerging leaders left not because they were unqualified, but because they found no opportunities for growth within their current organization. This highlights a critical point: if individuals in your organization lack a pathway for advancement, they will seek opportunities elsewhere.

I stress the necessity for leaders to continuously develop themselves and their organizations. It’s not enough to be skilled in your specific role; effective leadership requires a distinct set of skills that inspire and motivate others. I candidly share my own experiences of functioning well in my assigned roles while recognizing gaps in my leadership abilities. The goal is to bridge that gap and elevate our leadership skills to match our functional expertise.

I encourage listeners to assess their own leadership capabilities and consider how they are perceived by their teams. The ratings from team members can serve as a reflection of a leader's effectiveness, and it’s essential to recognize that team members can only rise to the level of their leaders. If a leader is at a five, their team will struggle to exceed that level.

Moreover, I discuss the implications of high turnover rates within organizations. The cost of losing talented individuals—through recruitment, training, and lost productivity—can be significant. By investing in the growth of current leaders and team members, organizations can mitigate these costs and foster a culture of development.

As part of the Maxwell Leadership Certified Team, I emphasize our core value of adding value to others, which in turn multiplies value within the organization. My aim is to inspire you to grow as a leader so that you can nurture the potential of those around you.

In conclusion, I reiterate the vital message: if your people don’t have a place to grow, they will go. Join me in recognizing the opportunities for growth within ourselves and our organizations, and let’s strive to reach the peak together. Thank you for tuning in, and I look forward to seeing you at the peak!

Transcript

Hey everybody, Jeff Miller here again with Apex Leadership Development, Reaching the Peak Podcast. Again, remember these are just my real, raw thoughts, okay? So I've been thinking a lot about, so John Maxwell, one of my mentors, he has one of the things he talks about, he calls it the law of the lid. And so basically your effectiveness as a leader is only going to be at the lid that you are at, at the level of leadership that you are. And I've been thinking a lot about that because I've talked a lot about goals, overcoming obstacles to goals, fear and setting those goals and stuff like that and achieving them. And what's the reason we're setting goals, right? We want to grow something in ourselves. We want to develop something within us. We want to take ourselves from here to here. We want to go from A to B to C to D, whatever that looks like. And I can't help but to remember a leader that I remember observing, I was a young man, and I remember everybody constantly talking about this leader and how so many people came out of this leader's organization and they would go into other leadership positions. And a lot of them, actually the levels that they would lead at after leading that organization They led at higher levels than that leader. Everybody talked about how it was an exceptional leader that all those leaders could come out of there. Here's the caveat. These leaders weren't being sent. These leaders weren't being developed and told, hey, now go over here and lead this. Yeah, you're ready. These leaders were leaving because there was nowhere for them to grow. And so one of the things that I've always taken away from that in life, and something that I've always said, I'm closing this window because it's kind of hard. There we go. If somebody in your organization does not have a place to grow, So if there's nowhere to grow, they're going to go, okay? And so you constantly have to be leading yourself, growing and developing yourself, growing and developing your organization, taking yourself to a next level so that the people underneath of you can come up to that next level. Now listen, here's the one thing that I want to make sure that we understand with this, okay? That leader that I'm talking about within their field, they were very respected within their field. They were incredibly competent at the skills that they needed to function every day in their role as a singular functionary. So they were really good at what they did. So your skill set, and you might be the best at the thing that you do, but it doesn't mean that you were a good leader. I've been in this situation myself where I functioned really well in the role that I was assigned, but my leadership wasn't always there. My functionary role was here, but my leadership role was there. So our goal is to close that gap and to raise our leadership level up to where our functioning levels are too. Because when we're at those levels, when we're functioning well, and we're leading well, then we're definitely going to be growing and clicking on all cylinders. So I want to make sure that we understand something. Number one is that you may function at a very high level in the skills and the job that you do, but that doesn't mean that you are a good leader. And you might even be in a position where you've been given the title of a leader. It doesn't mean you're a good leader, you're a functioning leader, but have you developed leadership skills? Have you developed things in you that make you a good leader, that make you somebody that people want to follow? And if you were to ask people between 1 to 10, where do they think your leadership skills and abilities were? And here's the thing, right? Where they rate you, they're never going to be able to be higher than you. And that's kind of what my mentor John Maxwell talks about with the law of the lid. You should check that out. It's in his 21 Irrefutable Laws of Growth. they're never going to be able to outpace you. And so people would leave an organization because they didn't have anywhere to grow because maybe that person was a five and the leader above them was a six and they didn't have anywhere to grow. They just had this much space, but they knew that they had so much more potential in them. So just remember that one of the things I've said this a lot throughout my journey, if people don't have a place to grow, Okay, if they don't have a place to grow, they're going to go. They will leave your organizations. I guess that would be one thing to write. Check your organization. Do you have leaks in it? Do you have people constantly leaving to go do the same thing that they're doing somewhere else? And then you watch them and accelerate and grow, and they grow beyond you. If they did, the problem is that you need to grow and develop as a leader. Let's not call it a problem. Let's call it an opportunity, okay? There's an opportunity there for you to grow and to get better. But now that if maybe you are growing and you're building leaders and you're taking a look at it, you're saying, man, this person is an incredible leader, and you help them find a spot, that's something different, okay? They're not going because they're not growing. They're going so that they can grow somebody else. And one of our goals, you know, I'm part of the Maxwell Leadership Certified Team, and one of the core values of that team is that we are leaders that add value to people who multiply value in others. And so I want to multiply value inside you. I want to see you grow so that you can grow the people that are underneath of you. And not only that, but what's the cost of people leaving your organization? How much does it cost you to hire, to train, to recruit? And if we would just take the opportunity and grow the leaders that we have and grow the people within our organization, we wouldn't have to replace them. So we have the cost of recruiting. We have the cost of training. all of those things that's taking your time away from other things. So if we can become a better leader, if I can become a better leader within my organization, if I can become a better leader in the field that I'm in, and again, I'm not talking about your skill, you might be incredibly gifted at whatever it is that you do. Maybe you sell, maybe you, I don't know, whatever, but you might be But again, just because you're good at your functioning role doesn't mean that you're a good leader. Most of us have opportunities to grow. And when I was leading, I knew that I had opportunities to grow. And so I want us to recognize the opportunity that we have to grow. and to advance ourselves so that we can advance the people that are underneath of us and working for us. So anyway, remember, if your people don't have a place to grow, they're going to go, okay? Jeff with Apex Leadership Development and Reach the Peak Podcast. Have a great day, and we'll see you at the peak.