Developing Leaders

My leadership library consists of hundreds of books accumulated over the years. I use them on a regular basis, but one in particular seems appropriate for highlighting in this series of posts. Warren Blank’s The 108 Skills of Natural Born Leaders provides some very solid leadership principles that you can readily adapt to your own situation. Here are some excerpts from his chapter on leadership development.

Attract Rising Stars – Ultimately, the best leaders focus on developing everyone's leadership skills. However, they also recognizes the limits of their time and energy resources. A good place to begin your efforts to multiply yourself is by attracting the rising stars - those with raw talent and the desire to turn it into real results. Identify those who have attracted your attention as “rising stars” by using questions like these:

• - Who has already demonstrated a desire to grow?
  - Who typically steps up and tries to lead?
  - Who has directly indicated an aspiration to improve their leadership capacity?
• Identify those who rate at the the highest end of this scale. Focus your first efforts on them, then expand your rising star search into other areas within your organization.
  
• Focus on attracting those with potential as opposed to only focusing on those with experience. Use a personal touch in talking with them about becoming a leader.

Skillful leaders apply their developmental effort where it can do the most good in the fastest manner possible.

Have you been doing any "star gazing" lately?