“The roads of the world are paved with squirrels that couldn’t decide.”

This insight was shared by a fellow EOS^® Implementer at our quarterly gathering in Detroit in February. It paints a very clear mental picture, doesn’t it? The ability to make a decision is one of the characteristics of all great leaders. Some people are great at making decisions; others find it challenging.

Decisions exist on two levels – intellectual and emotional. Our intellect tells us we “should” do something — expand our business, resolve that personnel issue, refine our marketing plan, work fewer hours, reduce overhead.

Carl Jung famously said, “You are what you do, not what you say you'll do.”

As clear and simple as that statement is, I’ve seen hundreds of otherwise successful leaders behave as though it doesn’t apply. If you want to quickly kill your company’s culture, consider making that mistake yourself. 

This is part two of a two-part series exploring what it means to develop leaders throughout your entire organization. See part one here.

You’ve begun to produce a leadership legacy when your leaders are producing other leaders. If you’ve guided your leaders on your own team well, they will do this independently of you – if they still need your help guiding their team, your work isn’t done yet.

When you start to see that third-generation leader rise, you know you’re almost there. You’ve created a leader equal to or better than yourself who has created a leader who is in turn equal to or better than they are. This allows everyone to rise as the company wins.

If you own a business or are on the leadership team of a business, you’re tasked with strategically defining what the future of your business will look like. Who will lead it into the future as you and your leadership team think of future transitions? How will you grow? The answer to these questions begins with developing others and eventually working yourself out of a job.

When I begin working with a new client, I often hear the business owner describing their company in ways that give a peek into what's going on underneath the exterior they're presenting. They use phrases like "I'm up to my eyeballs," "it's exhausting," "I have to do everything myself," and "no one pulls their own weight."

It's a sign to me that these business leaders could be headed for burnout, even if they aren't ready to admit it to themselves, yet.