Know the Way, Go the Way, Show the Way
“A leader knows the way, goes the way, and shows the way.” This is a classic quote from leadership guru John Maxwell — and it’s a powerful memory device to think about the key skills of leadership. Let’s break this statement apart:
Know the way… Vision, the ability to see a preferable future-state.
…go the way… Courage, a dogged willingness to pursue that future-state, regardless of the difficulty, risk, or personal hardship involved.
…show the way. Influence, the capacity to persuade others to pursue that future-state and empower them to achieve it.
So leadership is at the intersection of Vision, Courage and Influence. Maxwell’s leadership model is like a three-legged stool: strip one away and your stool dumps you on your rear. I love its simplicity. And I love that it invites you to think more deeply about what each of the three legs actually means; how do we actually put “know the way” into practice?
But what I love most about Maxwell’s definition of leadership is that it relies on skills that can be taught. It doesn’t rely on charisma or style. It says: “if you can dream it, if you can do it, and if you can convince a few others to do it…that’s leadership.”
We recently launched a new leadership assessment called LeaderGrade. We didn’t develop LeaderGrade with Maxwell’s quote in mind, but the resemblance is striking. Our research led us to develop a tool that measures leadership across three primary dimensions:
Strategy, the ability to create and communicate a clear vision of the future. (Know the way)
Business Results, the ability to prioritize, execute and achieve business results. (Go the way)
Employee Engagement, the ability to build effective teams, collaborate and inspire others. (Show the way)
We believe leadership is made, not born. We believe that each of us has the capacity — and the responsibility — to lead. And we’re on a mission to prove it. Join us?
For a short time, you can measure your own leadership effectiveness with LeaderGrade and get the full results for free. Hop over to www.LeaderGrade.com to check it out.
Phil Haussler is director of making stuff happen at Quantum Workplace. He’s dad of 2 boys, making him a lifelong student of leadership.