Reproducing yourself

If John can paint a house in 3 hours and Steve can paint a house in 4 hours, how long would it take Steve and John to paint 7 houses if they worked together? Didn’t you hate these questions in school? (The math nerd in me secretly loved these questions – the answer is 12hours) John and Steve can paint a house faster than John can on his own. If John had gone and gotten Steve and 4 others to help, the house would be done even sooner. This is where most of our leadership is. We go and get more people to help accomplish a task, probably not painting a house. You get the job done faster and you did it with others so the experience was much better and you developed some relationships while working. You feel good about the people you got involved, and you should. But have you reproduced yourself? You got 5 other people to help paint the house. They were doing the same thing you were doing, right? Not exactly. The real value you brought to the table wasn’t that you put paint on the house; it was that you got 5 other people to put paint on the house. This is the next level of leadership. It isn’t getting other people involved; it’s getting other people to get other people involved. It is John going to Steve and Mike and saying let’s each get 3 people to meet us here on Saturday at 9am to paint this house. Now Steve and Mike aren’t just following John, they are leveraging their relationship and leading for John. The greatest value you bring to any organization as a leader isn’t the work that you do, it’s leading others to do the work. Reproducing yourself isn’t managing others; it’s developing them as leaders and encouraging, challenging, and helping them to lead others as well. If Steve can get a few other guys to help paint the house, then Steve is 4 times as valuable to John. The people following you will be exponentially more valuable to you and your purpose if they are leading, bringing others with them, not just showing up. Where are you reproducing yourself as a leader? Where do you need to be reproducing yourself as a leader?