For the past two decades, I’ve helped groups of ambitious leaders come together, raise their game and take control of their careers. I wrote my latest book, The Grassroots Leadership Revolution, for the sole purpose of laying out a system to help them do just that.
Today, May 25th, the book is celebrating its one-year anniversary—a full year of inspiring leaders to not go it solo, but to turn to their peers instead for support, feedback and mentoring. The book was intended as a highly actionable blueprint for creating your own trusted network to help raise your collective abilities and success. Perhaps, Marshall Goldsmith put it best when he said that it was “The ultimate playbook for building a group coaching community that will support your leadership ambitions.”
If you’re starting a peer leadership group in your organization, I wanted to share three tips from the book.
1. Pick Peers Carefully
As you think of who you’d like to include in your group, consider people who are willing to be open and share experiences, and are ready to make a commitment to the group. Ideally, you will want to recruit group members who demonstrate partnership qualities, and avoid those who will be too high maintenance and create headaches.
2. Consider Commitment and Interest
Look for people who are willing to commit to the group and who have a shared interest in personal development. Be sure to set expectations around attendance requirements and time commitment, so everyone is on the same page and knows what to expect if they start missing meetings.
3. Look for Broad Perspectives
Diversity is the name of the game. When you create a cross-functional group for learning and development, it brings together multiple realities and a broad range of perspectives to the table. These differences of opinion and varying perceptions into the organization helps open eyes and bring fresh ideas and new insights.
The Grassroots Leadership Revolution is available at Indigo as well as Amazon.com and if you’ve already read the book, let me know what you thought! I would really appreciate a review.