The first is what John Maxwell Team call a Positional Leader, and that’s where you’re a leader just because of your title. And so you get given a job, and that makes you a leader, but only in a positional level. In BNI Global the core values values of lifelong learning, understanding by training how to be the best in that role… and a positive attitude, people buy into passion and excitement are key to progress to the next level of leadership
The second level is what’s called Permission Based. And so that’s where you’re leading people based on relationships that you’ve built, and the people looking up to you and trust you a little bit because they know you a little bit, perhaps have worked with you and got some sort of relationship with you. The building relationship core value in BNI is key here, support others to be successful and they want to follow your lead so that if you want to go fast, go alone, but if you want to go far, go together.
The third level is what’s called the Production Level, and that’s where people start to follow you, because they know that you deliver results, and they want to be with winners, so they want to follow you as a leader, because they know you’re going to deliver those results. This where a system like BNI that is proven to work is the Traditions and Innovations core value where as a leader you lead by following a system while adding your own flair and personalisation. The best networking groups, the best leaders, hold people accountable, and that’s what gets results so again the accountability core value is essential at the production level for networking to go beyond fun meetup or coffee club leading from the front and actively having 121s and finding referrals.
The fourth level is when it starts getting really exciting and really interesting is the People Development Role, and that’s where you’re a leader who’s helping others to reproduce results. It’s not just about the results that you personally are delivering, but you’re helping others to reproduce those results and helping them with their leadership. If you get good at recognizing others’ achievements and providing recognition to them, it encourages them to repeat those achievements and encourages them to develop. So people development is about lifting others up, and recognition core value absolutely drives that. If you get good at identifying opportunities to recognise others’ achievements, no matter how big or small, that can really help them to develop on their journey. If you can give everything you have back to the people that you’re working with, you can help them improve. Whether that’s your knowledge, your experience…then if you focus on just making it your goal to make them better than you, that’s what people development leaders are looking to do and that’s why BNI’s trademark core value is the idea of Givers Gain.
And then the fifth level is a level which very few reach, but it’s something to aspire to, and that’s the pinnacle of leadership, and where you’re kind of respected as an absolute leader across all of these things that we’ve talked about, and your ongoing accomplishments.
So you can move up and down these levels depending on different parts of your life, different parts of your career, and depending how experienced you are. So it is not like you are this type of leader the whole time, you change organisation and role and you can go right back to level one positional; but you could be at any point at this level, at any point during your career, depending on the role.