Level 1 Leadership is Not Enough

There is a fantastic leadership book titled, “How Successful People Lead” by John Maxwell.

The book takes the reader through five levels of leadership from Level 1, which is based on position (e.g. The President of a company has achieved level 1 leadership simply because of their title or position), through Level 3 based on production (leaders who actually make things happen), and ultimately to Level 5 where you are able to mentor or lead others through the first four levels.

John Maxwell lays out a great model for any emerging leader who has been appointed to a position and found themselves as a Level 1 leader. The first thing to remind yourself as a newly appointed leader is that Level 1 leadership is not a good place to be. It’s not enough. If you are simply relying on your position or title on your email signature to establish leadership credentials, you will miss out on a great opportunity to progress in your career and/or develop others on your team.

Markon’s Leadership Development Program stresses this concept when everyone arrives on their first day in the program. Just because you have a seat in the Leadership Development Program (LDP) class, that does not mean the work as a leader is over.

Our LDP takes emerging leaders through a progression of leading yourself to leading others and a team to leading strategy and vision. As you start to become proficient at leading strategy and vision, you will see yourself climbing through the five levels of leadership. Ultimately with the goal of reaching and staying at Level 5.

At what level of leadership are you and your team?