“If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more, and become more, you are a leader.”

~ John Quincy Adams

Reading this made me wonder, by Adams’ definition, how am I doing as a leader?

Dream More

• Do I inspire my team to dream more or douse their dreams with a cold bucket of reality?
• Do I know what your team member’s dreams are? What do they dream about professionally? Personally?
• If I am dreaming with them, do I also think about providing a step ladder to bring them closer to those dreams?

Learn more

• What support do I provide to team members who are looking to learn?
• Do I have regular conversations about each person’s learning goals? Have I created agreements about the actions that they need to take to achieve them?
• What am I doing to further my own learning? Do I talk about my efforts to model that behavior?

Do more

• I want my team to do more! Are they inspired to do more?
• Have I made clear the rewards available when team members do more?
• Do I know what’s standing in the way of each department doing more?

Become More

• In the context of my businesses, having team members who are becoming more mature, responsible, and self-aware makes my job easier. How do I recognize growth in our team members?
• I can sometimes get stuck seeing someone in the role or at the level of maturity that they had when I first encountered them. How do I update my mental model of folks as they grow and mature?

There’s nothing more valuable to a company, or that gives a leader more peace of mind than a workforce constantly improving their skills and growing their capabilities. If you have a spare hour this week, take a minute to reflect on the impact you are making as a leader.

If you do that, hit reply. I’d love to hear what you come up with.