Great focus placed on effective leadership at BARAIFA conference

“He who thinks he is leading and no one is following, is only taking a walk”.

This was just one of the key statements about leadership that Apostle Elector Pearson, the Senior Pastor and Founder of Hope Church and a certified John Maxwell coach shared with members of the Barbados Association of Insurance and Financial Advisors (BARAIFA), as they gathered for a conference on Friday at the Lloyd Erskine Sandiford Centre.

Pearson introduced members to a number of John Maxwell’s “leadership laws”, while citing him as “the number one leadership guru on the planet right now”. One key leadership law referred to was “The Law of the Lid”, where Pearson stressed the need for leaders to sharpen their leadership abilities, so that they can be much more effective.

“The Law of the Lid is increasingly important... leadership ability is the lid that determines a person’s level of effectiveness. The lower an individual’s ability to lead, the lower the lid on his potential. The higher the individual’s ability to lead, the higher the lid on his potential,” Pearson told those gathered.

He added, “Many people are trying to be successful, but their effectiveness is low, because their leadership ability is low. If you raise your leadership ability, with the same amount of effort, you can increase your effectiveness. For instance, if my leadership lid is a five, then I will attract threes and fours around me. If my leadership lid is an eight, I will attract six and sevens to me. You have to determine your level of leadership, because when you look around you, who is attracted to you, is based on your leadership ability,” the motivational speaker stressed.

He then asked the audience “How many of you have ever worked for a boss where your leadership ability was higher than his?”

This simple question certainly got the audience talking even more about the subject at hand.

Pointing out that persons can figure out what their leadership ability is on a scale of one to ten, by exploring 21 leadership qualities in Maxwell’s specific leadership survey, Pearson stressed that there is always room for growth.

“Things you can do to raise your lid? You can value experience with reflection, you can reflect on your day, reflect on how you dealt with clients and get better at it. You can invest in training. You can get mentorship, coaching. You can reflect on who has been a lid lifter in your life and what characteristics make them a lid lifter, and follow what they do, do what they do. Then make a “Stop Doing List”. There are some things that you are doing now, that you need to stop doing,” he said, while acknowledging that such things as being negative and procrastinating can be dropped.