Investing Wisely

Hands down, what is the best investment a leader can make?

It’s an investment in herself.

If a leader is going to remain effective—let alone improve her effectiveness—she must improve herself. This includes increasing her skill as well as expanding her knowledge.

This seems obvious, but leaders often find it hard to devote time to this basic requirement of leadership.

In his book Deep Change, Robert Quinn shares a business parable about a hermit who lives in the forest. The hermit gets word that an unexpected and severe snow storm is approaching. He begins to saw logs into firewood. The more he uses his saw, the duller the blade becomes, the harder it is for him to saw logs and the pace at which he creates firewood slows down. He knows that he should take the time to sharpen the saw, but with the impending storm he doesn’t believe he has the time to do so. When the storm arrives, the hermit is left with a big pile of yet-to-be-cut logs.

For some of us, this parable describes our approach to developing ourselves. We know we should take time out from what we’re doing to sharpen our saw, but we think we’re too busy with our work. But like the hermit, our failure to take this time gets in the way of our effectiveness.

So, what keeps us from developing ourselves?

Three of the most common reasons are:

1) We don’t give self-development the same priority we give to developing others.

“Leaders lead others, but sometimes they don’t realize that the best leaders never stop improving themselves” – Beth Miller (in the article "Great Leaders Develop Both Themselves And Those They Lead").

2) Good is the enemy of great.

If leaders have enjoyed success over a period of time, sometimes we think we don’t need any more development. But as John Wooden said, "Success comes from knowing that you did your best to become the best that you are capable of becoming."

3) Lack of time.

Mr. Quinn calls it the “tyranny of the in-basket” where “the pursuit of task drives out any thought of maintenance.” The time we spend in “task pursuit” squeezes out any time we have for self-development (or so we think).

In the next blog, we will examine some ways to overcome these hurdles so that we can make our most important investment, an investment in ourselves.