You don’t hire people to work for you, you hire people so you can work for them. Your job as a leader is to help people succeed. In his book, The Stuff of Heroes: The Eight Universal Laws of Leadership, William Cohen said, “Helping your employees is as important as, and many times more so than, trying to get the most work out of them.”
You start with service. The basis for your actions as a leader should be the service you are providing to your team. What are you doing to help them succeed? That is the number one question.
“It is high time the ideal of success should be replaced with the ideal of service.” ― Albert Einstein
You will get to know yourself through your service. Helping other succeed causes us to dig deep into our knowledge and abilities. Pulling from all you can to provide the best individual service to each person will hone your skills and perhaps lead you to solutions you might never have otherwise seen.
“The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.” ― Mahatma Gandhi
Your success is defined by the success of those you serve. Leaders like to win, so how do you keep score in the area of service? Simple, it’s the success of those you serve. Their success is your success.
“True leadership must be for the benefit of the followers, not to enrich the leader.” ― John C. Maxwell