Leadership First’s Post

If you are not willing to learn, no one can help you. If you are determined to learn, no one can stop you. Zig Ziglar Successful leaders, regardless of their industry or sector, share a common trait-they never stop learning. Whether it's from leadership books, new skills, academic or business journals, their employees or peers, or through innovative change, they all have a shared passion for learning. Successful leaders keep their minds open to new things because there's always more to discover, no matter how high their level of mastery is. Learning is the key to growth, and leaders who understand the purpose of continuous development not only grow themselves but also raise the tide of everyone around them. This growth, both personal and organizational, is what inspires and motivates them to keep learning. Life itself is one long learning experience, and the modern business world is evolving and changing at a breakneck pace. So, if your leadership has plateaued and you have no desire to learn anything new, it's time to do a little soul-searching to figure out why.  It's vital to prioritize learning and development because it will help you develop into a very successful leader while, in the process, increasing the overall success of your company and the people you are privileged to lead. Inspire your team with our Amazon bestseller, “The Inspirational Leader, Inspire Your Team To Believe In The Impossible. “This book has already transformed countless leaders; now it’s your turn. Click below to discover more. https://geni.us/upoYlX Explore our audiobook version, available on popular platforms like: -Spotify -Apple Books -Google Play #leadershipfirst #giffordthomas #leadership

If you are not willing to learn, no one can help you. If you are determined to learn, no one can stop you. Zig Ziglar Successful leaders, regardless of their industry or sector, share a common trait-they never stop learning. Whether it's from leadership books, new skills, academic or business journals, their employees or peers, or through innovative change, they all have a shared passion for learning. Successful leaders keep their minds open to new things because there's always more to discover, no matter how high their level of mastery is. Learning is the key to growth, and leaders who understand the purpose of continuous development not only grow themselves but also raise the tide of everyone around them. This growth, both personal and organizational, is what inspires and motivates them to keep learning. Life itself is one long learning experience, and the modern business world is evolving and changing at a breakneck pace. So, if your leadership has plateaued and you have no desire to learn anything new, it's time to do a little soul-searching to figure out why.  It's vital to prioritize learning and development because it will help you develop into a very successful leader while, in the process, increasing the overall success of your company and the people you are privileged to lead. Inspire your team with our Amazon bestseller, “The Inspirational Leader, Inspire Your Team To Believe In The Impossible. “This book has already transformed countless leaders; now it’s your turn. Click below to discover more. https://geni.us/upoYlX Explore our audiobook version, available on popular platforms like: -Spotify -Apple Books -Google Play #leadershipfirst #giffordthomas #leadership

If you are not willing to learn, no one can help you. If you are determined to learn, no one can stop you. Zig Ziglar Successful leaders, regardless of their industry or sector, share a common trait-they never stop learning. Whether it's from leadership books, new skills, academic or business journals, their employees or peers, or through innovative change, they all have a shared passion for learning. Successful leaders keep their minds open to new things because there's always more to discover, no matter how high their level of mastery is. Learning is the key to growth, and leaders who understand the purpose of continuous development not only grow themselves but also raise the tide of everyone around them. This growth, both personal and organizational, is what inspires and motivates them to keep learning. Life itself is one long learning experience, and the modern business world is evolving and changing at a breakneck pace. So, if your leadership has plateaued and you have no desire to learn anything new, it's time to do a little soul-searching to figure out why.  It's vital to prioritize learning and development because it will help you develop into a very successful leader while, in the process, increasing the overall success of your company and the people you are privileged to lead. Inspire your team with our Amazon bestseller, “The Inspirational Leader, Inspire Your Team To Believe In The Impossible. “This book has already transformed countless leaders; now it’s your turn. Click below to discover more. https://geni.us/upoYlX Explore our audiobook version, available on popular platforms like: -Spotify -Apple Books -Google Play #leadershipfirst #giffordthomas #leadership

I wrote a little booklet. The title is longer than the book. LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT: THE FOUR ISSUES THAT UNDERMINE TRADITIONAL LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMS. Since LDA funded my time to write, it is available to anyone who wants it at no charge. The booklet explores those four issues I believe undermine traditional leadership development initiatives we all have experienced over the years. The fours issues are: DEFINITIONAL. The traditional tropes for leadership suffer from inconsistent, non-distinct, and vague definitions that make it incredibly difficult to design learning for, and subsequently measure the effectiveness of both learning and impact. CONTEXT. Even if we could define leadership concretely enough so it was consistently understood, we would have a context problem. Shifting circumstances, changing landscapes, different players, etc. all affect what leadership strategies will work. Of course, we also have those wicked problems, those overwhelming problems, that require differing approaches-- assuming one could determine what those approaches should be. What worked yesterday, unlikely will work today or tomorrow. So... what do we teach for tomorrow? VALIDITY AND RELIABILITY. Given all the money we spend annually on leadership development, shouldn't we have some ability to rely on what we teach returning a dependable return? We don't. And the research that is positive, is hard to replicate let alone depend on the research methodology. We need to do more. Sure, there are absolutely complex skills we can teach-- but many of those require us to teach within a domain-specific arena, and many of those are human-specific, and not just leadership-specific. ALIGNMENT. Or, I should say misalignment, between what gets espoused by the "experts," the stakeholders in the organization, and the learning team with how leadership actually shows up behaviorally in practice. Also, there is a tendency for all parties to idealize the factors that make up leadership and ignore, or sweep under the rug, some of the more nefarious behaviors that support leader outcomes (I am not advocating for being a jerk). I allude to how we should approach LD. But that'll be the next booklet, due out later this summer. You can download your own copy of the booklet here: https://bit.ly/3QwRPLI If you are already an LDA member, you'll go right to the download page. If you are not, you simply create a free account and then you go. There are ePub, Kindle, and PDF options.

"WHEN YOU ARE A LEADER, YOU ARE NO LONGER RESPONSIBLE FOR DOING THE JOB; YOU ARE NOW RESPONSIBLE FOR INSPIRING, COACHING, MENTORING AND MOTIVATING YOUR TEAM TO PRODUCE THEIR VERY BEST WORK." Many people are promoted or recruited into leadership positions without understanding the fundamental philosophy of leadership: It’s all about people. When you are a leader, you are no longer responsible for doing the job; you are now responsible for inspiring, coaching, mentoring and motivating your team to become the very best version of themselves, which will help them produce their very best work. One must remember that the talents that make a person successful in a previous, non-leadership role are rarely the same ones that will make them excel as leaders. This is why we have many companies grossly over-managed and severely under-led. When a leader can inspire and empower their team to become the very best version of themselves by challenging their assumptions of what they can accomplish, they can now empower their team to believe in the impossible and produce unimaginable results to the astonishment of many. Inspire your team with our Amazon bestseller, “The Inspirational Leader, Inspire Your Team To Believe In The Impossible. “This book has already transformed countless leaders; now it’s your turn. Click below to discover more. https://geni.us/upoYlX Explore our audiobook version, available on popular platforms like: -Spotify -Apple Books -Google Play #leadershipfirst #giffordthomas #leadership

"WHEN YOU ARE A LEADER, YOU ARE NO LONGER RESPONSIBLE FOR DOING THE JOB; YOU ARE NOW RESPONSIBLE FOR INSPIRING, COACHING, MENTORING AND MOTIVATING YOUR TEAM TO PRODUCE THEIR VERY BEST WORK." Many people are promoted or recruited into leadership positions without understanding the fundamental philosophy of leadership: It’s all about people. When you are a leader, you are no longer responsible for doing the job; you are now responsible for inspiring, coaching, mentoring and motivating your team to become the very best version of themselves, which will help them produce their very best work. One must remember that the talents that make a person successful in a previous, non-leadership role are rarely the same ones that will make them excel as leaders. This is why we have many companies grossly over-managed and severely under-led. When a leader can inspire and empower their team to become the very best version of themselves by challenging their assumptions of what they can accomplish, they can now empower their team to believe in the impossible and produce unimaginable results to the astonishment of many. Inspire your team with our Amazon bestseller, “The Inspirational Leader, Inspire Your Team To Believe In The Impossible. “This book has already transformed countless leaders; now it’s your turn. Click below to discover more. https://geni.us/upoYlX Explore our audiobook version, available on popular platforms like: -Spotify -Apple Books -Google Play #leadershipfirst #giffordthomas #leadership

"WHEN YOU ARE A LEADER, YOU ARE NO LONGER RESPONSIBLE FOR DOING THE JOB; YOU ARE NOW RESPONSIBLE FOR INSPIRING, COACHING, MENTORING AND MOTIVATING YOUR TEAM TO PRODUCE THEIR VERY BEST WORK." Many people are promoted or recruited into leadership positions without understanding the fundamental philosophy of leadership: It’s all about people. When you are a leader, you are no longer responsible for doing the job; you are now responsible for inspiring, coaching, mentoring and motivating your team to become the very best version of themselves, which will help them produce their very best work. One must remember that the talents that make a person successful in a previous, non-leadership role are rarely the same ones that will make them excel as leaders. This is why we have many companies grossly over-managed and severely under-led. When a leader can inspire and empower their team to become the very best version of themselves by challenging their assumptions of what they can accomplish, they can now empower their team to believe in the impossible and produce unimaginable results to the astonishment of many. Inspire your team with our Amazon bestseller, “The Inspirational Leader, Inspire Your Team To Believe In The Impossible. “This book has already transformed countless leaders; now it’s your turn. Click below to discover more. https://geni.us/upoYlX Explore our audiobook version, available on popular platforms like: -Spotify -Apple Books -Google Play #leadershipfirst #giffordthomas #leadership