Why We Do Leader Building
By Intrigue
At Intrigue, we believe in empowering people to be leaders in their community. We believe a key part of doing this is having an unquenchable thirst for continuous, lifelong learning, so that we can grow ourselves, our team, and effectively serve our clients. To put this into practice, we’ve created “Leader Building” – a weekly program where we read, learn and grow as individuals and a team. When new team members start at Intrigue, Leader Building begins as an orientation tool. There are weekly questions about marketing, communication, and our cultural values and standards at Intrigue. After the first month, the team member begins to read through a curated list of books on business, best-practice marketing, and leadership – one chapter at a time.
Of course, you could read through the books much quicker but setting an achievable pace of a chapter a week allows us to really apply the knowledge we are reading. After reading the chapter, we submit our takeaways for our team members to give feedback on and hold us accountable to. We also share what we’ve learned with the rest of the team during our Monday morning Team Huddle before we start the week. Through this, we can make small changes each week to grow and improve. Over time, this amounts to amazing growth!!
A few months ago, after doing Leader Building for one year, I was reflecting on the year and wrote this:
“The most important ingredient of Leader Building has been the discipline of creating an actionable takeaway each week. Whether it is big or small, something I start or stop doing, it has helped me put what I am learning into practice. All this learning without action wouldn’t amount to much. Similarly, changing everything at once would have been impossible to maintain long-term. Since I have been creating new habits and changes each week for the past year, the impact on my life has been significant. Looking back on my growth is wonderful and encouraging – I am so happy to be a part of the Intrigue Team and I am looking forward to seeing how my learning continues!”
I think I speak for all Intrigue Team Members when I say that Leader Building is one of our biggest sources of personal AND team growth. At the beginning, it helped me learn about my role and the culture at Intrigue. The E-Myth taught me about the many hats entrepreneurs have to wear so that I can be aware of it in my own role and when talking with clients. Other books (Made to Stick, All Marketers Tell Stories) increased my ability to make great messages to get our clients noticed and found. The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership was – to be honest – not a book I would normally pick up and read, but it has raise my leadership skills in a way no other book has!
Reading educates, inspires, and opens minds.
Is there a book that could add value to you, personally or professionally, that you’ve been avoiding? I encourage you to pick it up and start reading, even if it is only one chapter a week. It could literally change your life.
You nailed it Starr!!! This piece articulates our why for leader building so well 🙂 It should also be noted that Leader Building is only as valuable as the time, effort, and commitment put into it. Starr, you are a dedicated learner and leader, thank you for contributing to this team every week!
This ia such a great piece Starr! Thanks for sharing 🙂
The Leader Building exercise is an excellent idea. I hope others will pick up on it.
Two other books you might want to add on in the future are: The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey and The Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lencioni.
Thanks for your note Dale! I’m glad you enjoyed it. Great suggestions – I am going to add The 7 Habits to my ‘books to read’ list right now!