Leadership – The fourth leadership level of development

Welcome back!

the-fourth-level-of-leadership-development Dear Readers,

After a short digression into two very interesting aspects of employee and self-management we are now returning to the development of employees in our company or associates in our downline. However, before you deal more precisely with the details of the fourth level of development there are a few questions that you should look at more carefully in order to check your own progress and your personal development.

Questions

How many of your employees have you identified on the third level of development?
What concrete steps have you taken in order to promote and challenge the employees in your team who are on the first level of development?
How have you increased the commitment of your em¬ployees on the second level of development?
How have you helped employees on the third level of development and which measures have you undertaken to strengthen the self-confidence of your employees?
Have you checked the employees on the third level of de¬velopment sufficiently?
Which of your measures have had concretely measurable positive results?
Which measures have had no concretely measurable results?

For each level of development there are actions and activities that you should implement as a manager in order to advance the growth of your company or your organization. For this it is important that you use a duplicable system because precisely in network marketing your success is directly dependent on the success, in other words the competence and commitment of, of your employees. Therefore you should take a few min¬utes to write down (it does not mater whether you do it on paper or with the aid of a computer) your thoughts about how you can implement my tips and strategies so that they become tactics you can use on a daily basis.

Competence and commitment

Your employees have developed through the first three levels of development and both their competence and their commit¬ment have changed accordingly. Do you still remember what the exact definition of commitment and competence was?

Competence = Knowledge x Experience

Commitment = Goals x Self-confidence

I you have succeeded on the level of decision (3rd level of de¬velopment) in helping your employees a lot, directing them little and they have experienced the necessary portion of pain from you, your employees will now be on the fourth level of development – the level of production.

Level of production

On this level your employees have understood and internal¬ized the purpose of the company. They are characterized by good and constant results and both their competence and their commitment are high. Employees on this level will be recognized through the fact that they have no doubts about their actions and decisions and that they take full responsi¬bility for their acts and omissions. Therefore they are at first glance perfect employees. Now you will rightly ask what you have to pay attention to here if everything fits as described above.

It is precisely because employees on this level have already developed so far and leave so little to be desired with regard to their competence and commitment that managers tend to forget the most important principle of management. This is:

Help the people who deserve it – not those who need it!

Because employees on the fourth level of development are highly committed and highly competent, it is particularly im¬portant to check up on them because the employees on this level expect you to do so! Successful employees want you to check up on them in order to receive acknowledgment of their competence and commitment. However, in the case of man¬agers on this level managers tend either to check too many un¬necessary things (which in turn blocks the development of the employees because they have to struggle with the bureaucracy of senseless checks) or they commit the error of doing too lit¬tle or even no checking, which in turn gives the employees the feeling that the manager has no interest in their work.

Closely accompanying question of checking up is the second area where managers of employers can make the mistake of not letting employees on the fourth level loose. Here manag¬ers forget to make themselves superfluous and do not allow highly developed employees to work on their own. This is based less on the fact that the employee would bot be capable of acting alone than on the decision falsely taken by managers who have failed to arrange on time to make themselves super¬

fluous by preparing the majority of their tasks (other than the important entrepreneurial activities) in such a way (keyword: SOP = standard operation procedures) that they can delegate complete responsibility to the employees on the fourth level of development. It is important that the employees on this level of development are vested in complete authority and respon¬sibility for the tasks delegated – and thus also for the deci¬sions that have to be taken!

Ties of leadership

The third area where managers and employers make mistakes when managing employees on the fourth level of development is in tying them to the company. You should understand that the employees on this level are the most valuable employees in your company and that you have invested a lot of time and energy in their development. If you do not give these employ¬ees a perspective and thus tie them to your company, these employees will leave in the long run and found their own com¬pany (or take up a corresponding position).

It is your responsibility to hold these employees as an asset in your company and to tie them firmly to your company by means of a successful partnership program. The sooner you give a share in the company‘s success to employees who have regularly proved themselves by their performance, their com¬mitment and their competence, the surer you can be of their dynamic support ind developing your company further.

Personal leadership experience

But it is precisely here that many employers or managers do not have the heart to tie these employees in and tend to hold them back artificially (using methods that ultimately appear help¬less). I have experienced this mistake myself after successful teamwork. I had developed myself over a period of 10 years in a company and again and again I had proved myself through my performance, my results , my competence and my commitment in innumerable situations and partly under adverse conditions and shown that I had not only arrived on the fourth level but even on the fifth! It was precisely in this phase that my then manager failed to tie me to the company; instead he tried to hold me back artificially within the framework of a new project saying: “You first have to prove yourself. When you have done that you can recommend yourself as a partner through your new performance.”

What at first glance sounds like a flowery motivating declara¬tion war in the final analysis a desperate attempt to secure for himself my complete work performance by equating me in the new project with newcomers who had not proved themselves.

leadership-factsheet-4

And this without there being any concrete occasion which would have justified this step. He simply wanted me as a habitual “production monster” to to step on the gas again. But what had my then manager achieved by doing so?

Well, admittedly it was a good six months before I officially quit but immediately after the discussion I decided that I would be staying long with the organization.Admittedly right up to the end I delivered considerable results, but within myself I had al¬ready quit at that moment and the results were far below those that I would have been capable of producing. I did just enough to always be among the top 3 employees of the company and to experience the corresponding recognition – but I achieved these results in a third of the time I had available! The rest of the time I used to prepare my departure.

When I then quit and my manager was flabbergasted with disbelief, I told him straight to his face what the decisive moment had been that had pro¬voked me to take this step. Years later this manager reported his greatest managerial mistake in meetings and how expen¬sive this mistake had been for her and the company in the final analysis.

Lessons of leadership

So tie your employees on the fourth level of development to your company in time. Check up on these employees – not too much, but often enough so that these checks are useful as a tool for increasing commitment. Give complete authority and res¬ponsibility when you delegate to these employees and spend most of your time with these employees.

Move into leadership action

Take up your list of employees again and go through each of the individual employees and ask yourself whether these emplo¬yees are on the fourth level of development. If YES, then write 4 beside their names. Then take a new sheet of paper and write down what you can concretely do in order to help these emplo¬yees and check up on them. Ask yourself concretely:

Which periods do you now have to reserve in your timetab¬le in order to develop these employees further?
How can you help these employees by checking only what is really necessary?
How can you make yourself superfluous and what can you delegate in its entirety?
How can you tie employees to your company or how can you tie employees to yourself as a manager?

Agree concrete appointments in the next few days in order to implement your measures