Learning Leadership

Chapter 3You Are Already Leading—Just Not Frequently Enough

We've collected Personal-Best Leadership Experiences from thousands of people around the world. A personal best experience is an event (or series of events) that people believe is their individual standard of excellence. It is their “record-setting performance,” so to speak: the time when they did their very best. It is something people use to measure themselves by: the time they look upon as their peak or highest-performing experience.

The experience does not need to be restricted to a time when someone was an appointed or selected leader. It can be either a time when they emerged as the informal leader or a time when they were the official leader, manager, supervisor, or captain. It can be in any functional area, in a service or manufacturing organization, in a public or private institution, in a staff or line position. It can be the start-up of a new business, a new product or service development program, quality or productivity improvement project, turnaround, crisis, and so on.

The experience does not need to be in one's current organization. It can be in a past work experience, or even a family or volunteer setting. It can be in a club, professional organization, school, team, congregation, or any other setting. It can any time when the person feels that they performed at his or her best as a leader.

After asking thousands of people to do this, from all kinds of nationalities, industries and functions, hierarchical ...