I remember when I read John Maxwell’s book, Good Leaders Ask Great Questions.
I enjoyed the book and used my yellow highlighter to mark many salient points. I enjoyed the book so much I lent it to someone a few years ago. They must have enjoyed it as well since I’ve not seen it since.
Maxwell’s book, like a lot of books, purports to share the foundations or keys to being a successful leader. In fact, the complete title of his book is Good Leaders Ask Great Questions: Your Foundation for Successful Leadership.
One might be forgiven for believing his book is all you need to be a successful leader. On the contrary, even Maxwell must not believe that point since he’s authored over 70 books on leadership subjects alone, according to one news outlet.
I’ve read many of Maxwell’s books along with numerous books on leadership by other authors. For years, almost every time I read a book, I would highlight a key point, write some notes in the margin, and then put the book back on the shelf where it gathered dust.
Sound familiar?
Recently, I’ve decided that I only need a few great leadership books. What I’ve learned is that it is important to supplement those leadership books with books on a multitude of different topics. I addressed this point in an article I posted in November 2020.
It is this way of thinking and approach that makes me similar to Bill Gates. You know – Mr. Microsoft - one of the world’s richest and successful people.
In the last of my three-part series on the connection between emotional intelligence and trauma, I want to share insights related to Daniel Goleman’s idea of focusing on the wider world. In my first article, I wrote about focusing on yourself. In the second, I wrote about focusing on others.
According to Goleman in his Harvard Business Review article, “The Focused Leader,” he recounts a story where Gates read a whole book on fertilizer while researching technological advances. Why? Because without fertilizer, “a few billion people would have [died].” If Gates stayed (i.e., read) only in his lane then certain advancements in the tech world and human world would not have taken place. A good example is Gates’ newly released book, How to Avoid a Climate Disaster: The Solutions We Have and the Breakthroughs We Need.
Gates's example of reading widely and Goleman’s admonition to focus on the wider world collide in business schools around the teaching of developing a winning strategy. A winning strategy has two main elements: exploitation and exploration. In other words, exploitation is how to enhance your current business advantage and exploration is how to seek out new advantages. You need both to succeed.
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For more information on “(Re)Building Trust: A Trauma-informed Approach to Leadership,” please visit my website mrchrisfreeze.com.
Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash
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