Favorite Resources for New Leaders

When we see the Leadership potential in one of our team members starting to make it's way to the surface a couple of things can happen.

We can feel threatened by this other person. If that's the case we could either try to shut them down and put them in their place, or try to fire them or get them transferred.

Or... we can help them learn Leadership, and give them the resources and opportunities they need to grow into the next generation of Leaders.

I have to say I've had great success with the second choice and would not recommend the first choice at all!  Surrounding ourselves with great people, even if some of them might be better natural Leaders than  we are, can only make us look better AND help the team/department/company achieve it's goals.

Steve, you say, what are these resources of which you speak?  Books and podcasts I say. Exactly which books and podcasts might vary depending on the age/maturity of the new Leader. We often end up putting people who are very good at their jobs in supervisory roles.  It's great to reward them for their efforts, and... much of the time we don't give them the tools they will need to make them successful in this new role.  The skills that made them great as a team members are not the skills they need to thrive in this new role.  They need to understand the basics of influence (Leadership), the mistakes they are prone nto make, and the right things to do.  They need a combination of reading/listening to great books and podcasts, AND they need our help to work through the struggles they will face along the way.

If a new Leader feels that we are a team, that we have confidence in their success in this role, that we will support them, that we understand they will make mistakes and will help them through them, and that our goals for them are the same as their own goals for themselves, they will have the energy and confidence they need to get through the hard work of becoming good Leaders.  We will talk about the actual steps of walking a new leader through the problems that will arise later in the blog.  For now, here is a list of the books and podcasts that have been useful in helping the people who have grown into leading their own teams through working their way up through my team.

I will put links to the books and podcasts below, and depending on your resources remember that you can borrow most, if not all of these books from your library.  Most libraries offer digital books and audio books in addition to physical books.  I would also ask you to remember that we don't all learn the same way.  Some people can read a book and have no trouble comprehending it, while others might have better success listening to an audiobook.

The Andy Stanley Leadership Podcast.  And yes, he is a church leader.  Get over it.  He is passionate about teaching leadership, from the most basic principles to casting your vision and more, so give him a listen!



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