Great Leaders Create Great Leaders

Will you accept this ultimate challenge?

What’s the worst that can happen? Seriously?

You must.

It’s your duty.

Well, to be fair it’s your choice. Choose wisely my friend. Creating leaders is the most important purpose of leadership.

Leadership is more than you. It’s more than the ego. You create ‘we’. ‘We’ creates ‘us’. By creating more leaders, you become a great leader. This is important because creating leaders is cyclical. The leaders you help create, in turn, become great leaders, and so on. These new leaders, in turn, creating more great leaders. It’s exponential. Be exponential.

Did you know that ‘contrary to the opinion of many people, leaders are not born’?

‘Leaders are made, and they are made by effort and hard work’ (Vince Lombardi).

Once I made a firm decision to be a leader, I learnt, mainly through reading and learning by listening to others, that the most important purpose of being a leader and practising leadership is to create more leaders. By leading by example, you set the precedence for the next generation of leaders. That fateful day, on a beautiful spring morning in Brisbane, Australia, 2017, I committed to being a leader and to focusing on creating more leaders. I did not make this promise to anyone else, not my father, my mother, my sister, or my brother. I made this decision to me, myself, and I.

I said, ‘I am Adam Bowcutt, and I am a leader.’ That day, my life changed – forever.

Say three times in the mirror ‘I am [your name], and I am a leader’.

Go on. I’ll wait. I’m not going to sugar-coat it. Doing this is extremely difficult for some people because it means getting out of your comfort zone. You may feel silly or weird. You may feel embarrassed. None of this matters, because the result is more important than the method. You will literally see yourself saying to yourself that you’re a leader. It’s a powerful thing. Okay, did you do it? If you did, congratulations! If you didn’t, that’s fine too. I’m not here to judge. However, think about why you didn’t do it.

Reach out to three people in your immediate network. They could be family members, friends, colleagues – anyone you know. Now say something completely honest that you see in them, like a positive strength. Pick one thing and simply share it with them. You can call them by phone, text them, or use social media messaging. The important thing is to share your message with them authentically. For example, I love sending messages to friends that simply say ‘You are awesome’. Imagine receiving a message like that from someone you know and believing it because you know deep down that the message is true.

By creating leaders, you enter the next level of leadership. Call it what you will – excellence, greatness, or radness. You end up making a positive impact on this world. How awesome is that?

PS. You are awesome.

Thank you for your valuable attention.

Adam Bowcutt.

Adapted from Confide: The New Psychology of Confidence. How to Power Up after Experiencing Depression