Bill Hybels on Growing as a Leader

I have little patience with leaders who get themselves into leadership binds and then confess that they haven’t read a leadership book in years. If you’re a serious-minded leader, you will read. You will read all you can. You will read when you feel like it, and you will read when you don’t. You will do whatever you have to do to increase your leadership input, because you know as well as I do that it will make you better.

I’m often asked how, in addition to reading, to get better as a leader. And if I’m in a playful mood, I’ll sometimes say with a smile, “Just lead something!”

The best way for leaders to get better is to lead something besides their “main thing.”

When you use different muscles, you force your body to flex and develop in new ways. Leaders must invite the same type of cross training into their leadership development regimen.

The more varied the environments in which you exercise your leadership gift, the stronger that gift will become. Lead something besides your main thing. You will become a far more effective leader.

Adapted from Axiom: Powerful Leadership Proverbs by Bill Hybels.