Leadership: Production vs. Consumption

Leaders Produce

Leadership influences others to do things they might not otherwise do. Good leaders influence others for mutual benefit.  Effective leaders simply influence. (See this post for further definition.)

All leadership development aims to a point in the future when the student becomes a producer.  The training, coaching, content or instruction points to a moment when the consumer becomes the producer.  Value is created by a leader's investment in the lives of others; leadership production.

Production Requires Consumption

However, we never stop consuming.  When we do we begin to rust.  Reading leadership content, interacting with other leaders, dialogue, coaching, interaction force us to think about what we know and expand our arsenal of ways we can positively influence others.

Leaders are measured by their output.

We're more like a warehouse or an assembly line than we'd like to admit.  When a warehouse stops receiving, the beginning of the end is marked.  Eventually there will be nothing left to ship.  More like an assembly line, we must continue to receive components and assemble them into new ideas that we use to serve those we influence.  When we stop receiving eventually we cease shipping.

Production Measures Leadership

As leaders, we're measured by what we ship, not what we receive.  The word consumer won't serve as a synonym for "leader."  Produce great ideas and deliver them to your sphere of influence.  That's leadership!

So as a leadership producer, how's your output?  What new ideas have you assembled and distributed lately?  Where are you in the launch of your distribution system?  Don't just listen, create something!