A Person of Influence…Reproduces Other Influencers
Definition of Reproducing:
Reproducing other influencers, in this sense, means to pass the baton and allow them to run their own race. Hopefully, they will in turn have integrity with people, nurture, have faith, listen, understand, mentor, navigate, connect with, empower, and eventually, reproduce other influencers themselves and pass the baton onto another and to another...and so your influence continues on.
The Power of Multiplication
Here are some benefits to creating leaders in your organization who are able to not only follow you, but also influence others and raise them up:
1. Reproducing leaders raises your influence to a new level.
“When you influence leaders, you indirectly influence all the people they influence. The effect is multiplication.”
2. Reproducing leaders raises the new leaders’ personal potential.
“As soon as people understand leadership and start practicing leadership principles, they blow the lid off personal potential. And if they lead people who lead others, the potential for what they can achieve is almost limitless.”
3. Reproducing leaders multiplies resources.
“As you develop leaders, you’ll find that your resources increase in value. You have more time because you can share the load and increasingly delegate authority.”
4. Reproducing leaders ensures a positive future for your organization.
“A good leader will always have those around him who are better at particular tasks than he is. This is the hallmark of leadership. Never be afraid to hire or manage people who are better at certain jobs than you are. They only make your organization stronger.” ~ G. Alan Bernard
Awaken the Reproducer in You
1. Lead Yourself Well
“The number one reason leaders are unsuccessful is their inability to lead themselves.” ~ Truett Cathy
2. Look Continually for Potential Leaders
“If you keep developing yourself as a leader, you will soon be ready to develop others. And if you want to be a great reproducer of leaders, you need to seek out and recruit the best people possible.”
3. Put the Team First
“The goal of many leaders is to get people to think more highly of the leader. The goal of a great leader is to help people to think more highly of themselves.” ~ J. Carla Northcutt
4. Commit Yourself to Developing Leaders, Not Followers“The function of a leader is to produce more leaders, not more followers.”
SEVEN QUESTIONS FOR A SUCCESSFUL TEAM ORIENTATION
- Do I add value to others?
- Do I add value to the organization?
- Am I quick to give away the credit when things go right?
- Is our team consistently adding new members?
- Do I use my “bench” players as much as I could?
- Do many people on the team consistently make important decisions?
- Is our team’s emphasis on creating victories more than producing stars?
Moving from Maintenance to Multiplication
“Many people live in maintenance mode. Their main goal is to keep from losing ground rather than trying to make progress. But that’s the lowest level of living when it comes to the development of people.”
Five Stages Between Maintenance and Multiplication, starting with the lowest:
1. Scramble
“Spending most of the time finding people to replace the ones they lose.”
2. Survival
“Leaders who do nothing to develop their people, but manage to keep the people they have.”
3. Siphon
“Leaders who work at developing their people into better leaders, but neglect building relationships with their people. As a result, their potential leaders leave the organization to pursue other opportunities.”
4. Synergy
“When leaders build strong relationships, develop people to become good leaders, empower them to reach their potential – and are able to keep them in the organization – something wonderful happens. It’s called synergy, meaning the whole is greater than the sum of its parts because the parts interact well together and create energy, progress, and momentum.”
5. Significance
“Leaders on this level develop and reproduce leaders who stay in the organization, work to reach their potential, and in turn, develop leaders. And that’s where influence really multiplies.”
How to Raise Up Leaders Who Reproduce Leaders
Being an influencer means…
- Modeling integrity with everyone you come into contact with.
- Nurturing the people in your life to make them feel valued.
- Showing faith in others so that they believe in themselves.
- Listening to them so that you can build your relationship with them.
- Understanding them so that you can help them achieve their dreams.
- Enlarging them in order to increase their potential.
- Navigating them through life’s difficulties until they can do it themselves.
- Connecting with them so that you can move them to a higher level.
- Empowering them to become the person who they were created to be.
- Reproducin g other leaders so that your influence continues to grow through others.
hope you have enjoyed this series as we have gone through John Maxwell's book, Becoming a Person of Influence: How to Positively Impact the Lives of Others. We hope to do more studies like this on books that speak truth, wisdom and challenge into our lives, both at work and at home. The reason I love this book is that it is geared towards those you lead at work, and yet there are so many parralls into our relationships with our spouses and children, with our friends and with our family.
Thanks for taking this journey with us! If you have any suggestions for books we might use in the future, send me an email at nick.braschler@simfoods.com and I'd sure look into it. Have a great week!