Killing potential

If you believe...

 John Maxwell in his book Developing the Leaders Around You says, "When a leader does not believe in us. success is very difficult for us to achieve." As I thought of that I how deep that principle goes? After a few minutes, I thought it went far further than most in leadership realize. 

There are times when people are given places of leadership and the person struggles. The person who places them there will sometimes tell themselves and others, "I knew they couldn't make it." Yet, is it completely true? If someone really believes in someone they will invest in them and do what they can to help. However, they will not give that to someone they believe will fail. In the end, they are proved right, but perhaps in truth, they helped make it so. They might have done it without even consciously thinking about it. They don't remember the encouragement and help they gave the "winner" and equally forgot how they discouraged the "loser." 

I can't help but think about situations I have seen a leader put someone in charge of something and say, "Try not and make it worse" and then disappear. On the contrary, calling, encouraging, and in small ways supporting another person saying literally or figuratively, "Knock it out of the park, I know you'll do great." Surprise of surprises the leader gets exactly what they expect.

Perhaps in leadership development, it's also true, "If you think you can or think you can't, you'll get what you expected."

As leaders let's not kill potential by working toward failure in others.