Sustaining Qualification

As I closed our look at Knowing Your Worth by sharing a few steps for crafting a lasting influence, I mentioned how something as silly as a complimentary email series (known today as A Daily Dose Of Leadership) that was initially meant to help our new business stay top-of-mind with the executives and business owners we hoped to serve ended up being something that forced me to invest time day into sharpening my own leadership skill set. In launching our Executive Leadership Elite Think Tank just two years later, we had a starting point for building a qualified network of leaders with expertise in nearly every sector of our local economy. But starting it and sustaining it required two very different approaches.

Earlier I detailed the continuing education requirements for me to maintain the SHRM-CP credential I earned more than a decade ago. Through that process and through the support we provide for several small business clients still today, I’m able to maintain a reasonable level of familiarity with the ever-changing landscape that is employment law. For several years, I also provided different types of safety training and support for some of those same clients. That said, I finally had to admit that even with close to twenty years of experience in the safety field, I didn’t have enough exposure on a routine basis to sustain the value I could provide. More importantly, I was concerned that I’d miss a critical change in regulations and create unnecessary exposure for one of those clients.

As we’ve dialed in more and more on providing tailored leadership development and workplace communication resources for the executives in our ELETT and IMPACT groups, as well as leaders at all levels in each of the organizations we serve, we’ve become very effective at sustaining the qualifications they’ve grown to count on us to provide them. That said, sustaining that qualification has in no way meant maintaining the skill set we developed to earn their business (and trust) initially. We’ve invested more time, energy, and resources to get to where we are today than we did through our fifteen year personal leadership growth journeys that served as our foundation to start our business.

In the more than two and a half decades that I’ve studied leadership, I’ve seen speakers, trainers, and consultants from a variety of backgrounds. Many of them have absolutely mastered the message they share - but notice I said message (singular) rather than messages (plural). It’s not too hard to become really fluid in presenting the same script over and over and over again. While that may capture attention once, it rarely brings someone back twice. I’ve repeatedly mentioned my humble beginnings. If there’s anything I have to hang my hat on though, it’s that I’ve worked incredibly hard at constantly improving my qualifications. 

If we stick with a certain diet, we may be able to sustain a consistent weight, but there’s no such thing as sustaining qualifications; not in leadership and not in any other field. Continuous growth is an absolute necessity. And continuous relational growth is key in keeping our leadership qualification relevant. Before we wrap this up with a look at how we can leave a qualified legacy, I’ll challenge you to set a quarterly goal for enhancing what you see as your best skill. Without that, even your best today may soon not be good enough…