Leadership in Economic Development: Developing the Leaders Around Us

Create a Nurturing Climate

According to Maxwell, successful leaders are environmental change agents who know how to create momentum before asking people to change. They encourage people to do great things through believing in them and building an atmosphere that makes it easier to succeed. Part of creating an appealing climate is modeling leadership — people emulate what they see modeled.

Maxwell advises practical steps for identifying and maximizing the potential of future leaders: find the one thing you believe is the potential leader's greatest asset and give 101 percent encouragement; determine what your potential leaders need or desire; look for traces of leadership gold such as positiveness, servanthood, growth potential, follow-through, loyalty, resiliency, and integrity.

Equip Potential Leaders for Excellence

All good mentoring relationships begin with a personal relationship, says Maxwell. As your people get to know and like you, their desire to follow your direction and learn from you will increase. Developing personal relationships requires showing genuine interest and care in another's life stories, one conversation at a time.

Getting to know others involves ensuring that they are spending time on those activities that align well with their strengths. Each of us should be spending 80 percent of the time doing things that require our greatest gifts and abilities, the things we love to do.

Make a Lifelong Commitment

The growth and development of people is the highest calling of leadership, says Maxwell. The very best leaders go beyond creating a great environment to truly developing their people to reach their potential. This work involves bringing out the best qualities in others, developing their character, and helping them discover themselves along the way.

Develop a Dream Team of Leaders

For economic developers, the opportunity to build a dream team extends beyond one's own organization and into the community. Developing a community dream team takes intentionality, foresight, and inventiveness. Oftentimes when leaders are not working together, it is because they do not know each other. Therefore, the first step in community dream team building is finding a reason, no matter how small, to bring leaders together in a room.

Many of us serving in the economic development profession see it as a calling to help those around us navigate ever-challenging times. We have seen that there are great and abounding opportunities for our profession to make a lasting difference by investing in others, especially in the watershed moments of life. As Maxwell explains, leadership development is above all else a matter of the heart.