Growth In My Own Words

I was thinking today about a conversation with peers I'd had earlier this week about accountability, growth, and leadership. And of course, at various times since then, different thought patterns have started.

As I thought about these three things separately, I found that they are anything but, and they should be intertwined and used together:

Effective leadership instills, teaches, and promotes accountability.
Accountability promotes, teaches, and instills effective leadership qualities.

Growth happens when people are accountable. Growth happens when individuals are leading. But there was something else missing from growth.

I thought about my kids. How have they grown? Well, for one they are out of diapers and into designer jeans. Yeah, except that the diapers were easier to shop for. Another bonus is that they are past baby food stage and into the teenage "eat everything in sight after school" phase.

This was still not what I was trying to pull from my thoughts on growth. So, I decided to grab a snack, although I wanted something low-fat. I didn't want to have to exercise any more than necessary!

As soon as I thought about exercise, I realized that this was exactly what I was looking for.

In order to grow, we must exercise. We can't get bigger biceps without exercising. We can't gain more muscle unless we exercise. We can't increase our strength, gain power, and hold on to what we have unless we challenge the muscle we have already and grow it.

Growth to get bigger, gain more, and to add in quantity requires exercise. Exercise requires action. Actions require a plan. And plans are made to reach a goal. Everyone wants to exercise, because it sounds like a good thing to do. It looks good. I'm supposed to do it. But honestly, who is going to STICK with an exercise program if they don't know what their goal is? And why would anyone have a goal if it didn't mean something personal to them?

We see this every holiday season. People purchase gym memberships and millions of dollars worth of exercise equipment that they plan on using. Without a specific goal, they are essentially volunteering their body's to participate on this vision in their minds. Without ownership, without a specific and measurable goal in sight, and without ever taking the time to determine the importance of this activity in their life, why would they continue on this vision? They don't. And I believe that is the same reason we lose volunteers.

People start and stop. Start and stop. Start and stop. The growth they were hoping for doesn't happen and discouragement sets in. Pretty soon, they don't even show up.

The solution is for growth to occur steadily, continually, and with a clearly defined path specific to each persons goals and life area mission statements. That creates personal accountability and meaning-even in volunteering. It creates a growth chart of sorts. Out of growth great leaders are born and raised. These up and coming leaders and maturing individuals will require good coaching and leadership to keep them on their growth course. And we all like to see how much we've grown in our life areas.

Growth attached to exercise, exercise attached to involvement, and involvement attached to personal accountability is when growth becomes sustainable. And only when growth is sustainable does it become measurable.

This is just one of my thought processes which may turn out to make sense only to myself until I dive a little deeper into it. No harm in that, but comments are always appreciated.