My wife, children and I just got home from seeing her father in Indiana. It is a twelve-hour drive so we spent a lot of time thinking, conversing and planning the future. Here are some points on leadership we came up with.

Not Everyone Goes At The Same Speed

When you are driving this is obvious as cars go flying by you at 90 mph, or maybe for you it is reversed but that’s your business.  When you are leading you may not see it as clearly. When you want to see growth in a group of people your first tendency may be that, “I got it, why can’t they.”  Not every concept is as obvious to those we lead as it is to us.  Whether it is their maturity level, or the place they are at in their growth, not everyone will get it at the same time.

Not Everyone Will Follow You.

This has to be one of the most overlooked aspects of being a leader.  You may think everyone will follow you but the odds are that some one will not. Just like cars people will go faster or slower than you do.  People will pass you and some will drop off altogether. This is usually proportionate to your level of leadership.  We all know that if you have a lower level of leadership, people with a higher leadership aptitude will not follow you.  The reverse is true as well.  If you are an eight or nine there are threes and fours that will be jealous of your leading and they won’t follow.

Big Ideas Don’t Come Along As Often As Small Ones.

We went through tens of small towns along the way several medium towns but only three big cities: Atlanta, Chattanooga, and Nashville.  Big ideas are direction changers and take time to work through.  Developing a big ideas may take outside help to give you direction, but they also provide more options than smaller ideas.   Small ideas keep you going and build on the  momentum of the big idea. Smaller ideas may add to the big ideas or they may help your sort out details, but they are not direction changers.  Some small ideas may become big ideas if they are developed right, but that is for another post.

When Coming Out Of Something Big It May Take Time To Get Everyone Up To Speed.

When a big idea has run its course there will be people who want to stay at that level.  They want to hang on to the big idea because it gave them security and some it gave a leadership position to.  If it worked before why will it not work again many ask, not able to realize that times change and ideas become safety nets to keep us from being stretched and changed.  Some will abandon you or the organization for another place that can give them the safety of that one big idea that meant so much to them.

The Going Can Be Slow At Times

Traffic moves slow at times, and so does growth.  There will be times when you are developing an idea and it will feel like no one but you gets it.  Whether it is your growth, your people’s growth, or just the wrong time it will feel like you are going nowhere fast.  During these times you may want to give up or get off the road, but now is not the time.  It is okay to pull over and reevaluate and check your direction, but you need to get back on the road and keep going in the direction you believe you should.  Eventually you will see the pace start to pick up and changes start to take place.

image by flicker user kool_skatkat used under cc2.0 liscense