I’ve heard many times, He/she was a born leader. I can’t agree with that statement in its entirety. I believe more so that we “grow” into leadership, more than we are born into it.
Sometime back I was asked, “Jennifer, would you follow you?” At the moment, my mind flashed to a bumper sticker I had seen years ago “Don’t follow me, I am lost”. At the time I saw the bumper sticker, I thought – that’s cute, that’s me. Now that the question was posed AT ME – that bumper sticker was no longer cute and I certainly did not want it to be ME.
Was I a leader? I thought I was, but was that surface thinking, maybe more of an idealistic desire based on my past rather than the reality of now? That question and the answer that came from my heart dropped me to my knees. No, I would not want to follow me.
What was I missing? How could I change that “No” to a “Yes”? I had the core
principles, integrity, honesty, compassion for others, a desire to help others. I’d been a leader in other areas all through my life.
What happened when I got involved in Network Marketing?
What happened? When I got involved in Network Marketing, I started failing more than in anything I had ever been involved with. Without realizing it at the time, I had started questioning myself and my abilities.
Once I realized this …. what had I stopped doing? I was working hard at building my business. I was trying to keep a positive attitude. I had enthusiasm. What was missing?
I looked at my leadership, my mentor and asked myself “If I continue to follow his lead, will I get where I want to be?” Then I looked at HOW he was leading.
I came to a startling realization that day – I was following the wrong leader. His leadership strategy was get sign-ups, get sign-ups, get sign-ups. You don’t need to be spending a bunch of time reading stuff not related to closing the deal; just use the script. If you need help with a prospect, get me on a three way call. I’ll close the deal.
That’s not what I wanted to be. That’s not what Network Marketing meant to me. Our basic fundamental values were like night and day. He cared about the bottom line, his check. I cared about people and helping others.
I was so focused on following the leader, getting where I perceived him to be, I had stopped doing things, reading things that kept me on the path to self-development.
It was time for a change, both in what I was doing and who I was following.
It’s ok to realize we are not what we want to be today. In fact, being honest with ourselves, though it can be painful, is the ONLY thing I know of that can change our course. Good Leadership, especially in Network Marketing, requires the we continue to grow ourselves. It requires that we make this a top priority.
I found new mentors, true leaders in the industry with the same core principles as my own. I follow them, read books they suggest, invest time in my self-development. I stay plugged into a mastermind group based on self-development.
If your leadership is not encouraging you towards self-development as a core business building skill, then do it on your own or find a mentor to work with who does.
Would I follow me? Then “No”… Now “Yes”. However, that doesn’t mean I can quit working on myself… Never stop growing. Encourage those you work with to grow with you, because it’s really pretty simple, if you want your business to grow, you must ALWAYS, forever, continue to grow.
Every moment of our lives we are either growing or dying…
~ Robert Cooper from The Other 90%: How to Unlock Your Vast Untapped Potential for Leadership & Life
~Jennifer
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March 11th, 2009 at 12:11 pm
I was sucked in to network marketing almost right off the bat when I started using the Internet to try and make money. CyberWize was the first one I joined. It was a good concept, but no follow through. Then I got involved in Melalueca, which is a great company, but no one was watching the leaders.
It cost me, but it was money well spent. I learned that I do not want to recruit family and friends into anything, that most of those speakers are lying, and that network marketing is just another name for ponzi. No offense meant to you.
I stopped by for Wordless Wednesday. You visited my blog last week and I wanted to return the favor.
Texas ‘Roos
March 11th, 2009 at 12:28 pm
You bring up some very good points – No follow through and no one watching the leaders… how ironic you should say that about that particular company…. in that particular company the leaders can do just about anything they want except leave the company and go elsewhere – the owner can sue them for that. It was put into UTAH law last year….
But I understand why you feel the way you do… just like being in Corporate America – there’s got to be a high quality of integrity in the leadership! Saying on a site “we have the highest standards of integrity, blah blah … ” doesn’t make it so… but that’s another topic…
Oh, by the way…. sucking people in — Network Marketing should not be a ‘suck ‘em in’ business, but I see it all the time. I think ‘sucking someone in’ comes primarily from people desperate for a body count instead of being genuinely interested in helping another person through whatever the opportunity or product has to offer.
Thanks for stopping by.
~Jennifer
March 12th, 2009 at 4:47 pm
Hi Jennifer,
very interesting the self awareness you talk about regarding leadership and the whole idea of would i follow me? A question more people who call themselves “leaders” should ask of themselves.
Interestingly there is a recent book published under that name all about conscious leadership in our own lives at http://www.wouldifollowme.com
cheers
Daz
March 16th, 2009 at 5:29 am
I’d like to think that this is a topic more leaders would ask themselves too. Thanks for sharing the book information.