Leadership Level 2: Permission or Relationship

Most of the times, this level is being skipped out. After getting the "position" as the leader, most of the aspiring starters jump straight through Level 3. They start to give out orders and commands, not being aware that they are dealing with humans (and not robots).

As a recap, we learned that in the First Level, your title or your position is the only influence you have. Furthermore, climbing in this level, the "relationship" level, you are trying to get people to work for you even if they are not obliged. 

Does it sound as if this only exists on a "perfect" or "ideal" system? Isn't it? How can you make someone work for you beyond his work schedule, that is, it's like working for charity? This might sound weird, but yes, if you excel in this level people naturally allow themselves to follow you, even if it might cause "some inconveniences" on their part.

John C. Maxwell gave an illustration from the story of Henry Ford (in Amitai Etzioni's book "Modern Organizations"):

He made a perfect car, the Model T, that ended the need for any other car. He was totally product-oriented. He wanted to fill the world with Model T cars. But when people started coming to him and saying, "Mr. Ford, we'd like a different color car," he remarked, "You can have any color you want as long as it's black." And that's when the decline started.

The "permission" level is where you work out your inter-relationship skills. You need to build solid and lasting foundation of relationship with your followers in order to sustain a long and effective kind of leadership.

As John C. Maxwell puts it in words:

"You can love people without leading them, but you cannot lead people without loving them."

To excel in the "relationship" level of leadership, most of the times, you would need to invest your time, your patience, and your finances - it is more of investing "yourself" for them. There would come a time when it seems you are not seeing the results yet, but still, be persistent on building up on this level. Remember, one of the most difficult tasks in constructing a skyscraper is laying out its foundations. But once the foundations are all set up, it is not impossible to erect a giant building, even if it is the mighty Burj Khalifa - the tallest man-made structure in the world!

If you aim to proceed to the next level, these are the qualities John Maxwell listed in his book "Developing the Leader Within You" that you must exhibit first, with excellence.

Leadership Level 2: PERMISSION or RELATIONSHIP

• Possess a genuine love for people.
• Make those who work with you more successful.
• See through other people's eyes.
• Love people more than procedures.
• Do "win-win" or don't do it.
• Include others in your journey.
• Deal wisely with difficult people.

Now, if you see yourself excelling in this level, you need to climb to the next level of leadership.

And we will be talking about that on the next post about Leadership.

© 2014 Erickson Ibana

Image can be found http://greatleadersserve.org/servant-leadership-works/

Second image can be found in John Maxwell's book "Developing the Leader Within You"