Invest
in What Makes You Best and Network
the Rest!
By Lisa Marie Platske
Business sense
tells us that everything rises and falls on leadership—creating a
vision, generating commitment, building a team, and eliciting the
best from everyone involved. A leader takes us to a new place of
belief in ourselves and our abilities, and we all have the capacity
to be that leader. As Vince Lombardi once said, “Leaders aren’t
born, they are made. And they are made just like anything else,
through hard work.”
Throughout grade
school, high school, and college, I was intrigued by a rather small
group of gifted leaders whose self-confidence and unique ability to
influence others always seemed to translate into high achievement.
The job I accepted with the Federal government several years later
gave me even more opportunity to develop my ideas about leadership.
Through all of my
observations and interactions, it became clear to me that leadership
is essentially about influence, and influence is easy to create.
In today’s
changing business world, every executive and employee needs to
develop the necessary skills to be a person of influence. Whether
you work for a large corporation or are creating an entrepreneurial
vision through your own company, leadership ability will be a
primary determinant in your level of success. Are you someone
others would willingly follow
The first of the
five key principles of increasing your sphere of influence is to
invest in what you do best and network the rest. The truth is that
people follow people…and then their plans. Thus, the more you have
to offer, the greater your sphere of influence.
All great leaders
invest in themselves as well as their employees by focusing time and
resources to develop their skills. Fine-tune your strengths and use
the relationships you’ve cultivated through networking to assist you
with the challenges you face in other areas. Then, build on the
unique strengths of each individual in the organization and create a
powerful system of leaders developing leaders.
According to the
American Society of Training and Development, companies that invest
in developing their people consistently outperform organizations
that do not by an average of 35% every year. Therefore, executives
should be asking themselves, “What will happen to the organization
if I fail to invest in my employees?”
As a small
business owner, I understand that developing strengths will allow me
to increase my sphere of influence as well. If entrepreneurs, like
me, do not invest in what makes us best, we will be out-skilled and
out of work. An investment in something tangible for our business
like new technology or a better briefcase may be a good business
decision. However, research shows that helping ourselves become
more of what we already are will pay us back ten fold.
Leaders are indeed
made through hard work. Develop your potential and realize the
first principle in increasing your sphere of influence: invest in
what makes you best and network the rest.
