The Root of All Leadership
Mar 17, 2021
The Law of the Ladder is about growing your character to grow you. And says, character growth determines the height of your personal growth.
When you think of character what comes to mind? I (Cindy) think of honesty, integrity, accountability, being genuine, the same person on the inside as we are on the outside, doing the right thing, many thoughts come to mind when the topic of character comes up.
The development of character is so foundational to the success of every individual that Wes and I started our Emerging Leader Development course session one, module one, with character! For us, we would be failing individuals and organizations if we didn’t start this people development course with the very thing that makes up the foundation of the person.
What does character mean to you? How can character help you on your personal growth journey? Whatever it is for you it is important to remember character is a foundational component to who we are and how we show up for others. Plus, character breeds trust - the foundation of leadership.
Just a few days ago, I finished developing a course for our Leading at the Next Level participants titled, What the Best Leaders Do to Consistently Uplevel Their Leadership.
Here’s one of my favorite quotes from that lesson:
Character makes trust possible, and trust is the foundation of leadership. There are three qualities a leader must exemplify to build trust: competence, connection, and character. - Mark Cole, CEO, The Maxwell Enterprise
And how about this quote by Dale Carenegie, “Be more concerned with your character than your reputation. Your character is who you really are and your reputation is merely who people think you are.”
As we consider the Law of the Ladder and continue growing ourselves, it builds us to be the leader our family needs, our organization needs, and the world needs as we continue to navigate change.
In a session recently with John Maxwell he discussed how leaders embrace change and reminded us we can only pull from the foundation we already have. So grow everyday! Let’s always strive to be better tomorrow than we are today and do the hard work of being the best version of ourselves. The root of all leadership goes back to who you are more than what you know.
