Leadership is intentional and intensive. Leadership, over time, is about calendaring time with those we lead. If we are not with them, pouring vision and hope into them, celebrating and solving problems with them; eventually we will not lead them. Quality leadership is not done on the fly, but is intentionally thought through and intentionally scheduled. If you want to lead others, that leadership assignment must be on your calendar. When will you meet with them? Often enough that they experience your investment? When you are with them, how can you celebrate them?
Leadership is intentional, and as we begin to flesh this “intentionality” out, it is obvious it becomes intensive.
It requires time, heart and soul. Leadership is hard as it calls us beyond our own schedules and often out of our strengths to invest time in others. To lead means not being able to do all you would prefer to do. To lead requires choosing to invest in others, and that does not happen when the leader’s calendar is full of crisis or personal assignments. To lead means to focus not on the leader’s personal strengths and celebrations, but on those the leader leads! And now we are back to the soul of the leader. When we lead to “get our strokes,” we become ineffective leaders, consuming the energy for our own needs.
There are no effective “hit and run” leaders. If you want to lead well over a longer period of time, take a look at your calendar.
Are you “with” those you lead? Are you giving the time and reflection to prepare “hot” investment opportunities? Leading with intentionality and intensiveness catalyzes the development of others, and therefore the strength of the team. It is a choice – to lead and spend the time and energy investing in others, or to simply be at the top of the org chart.