Remember Aesop and his fables? They were stories that began with a dilemma and ended with a moral. Using Aesop’s method of delivery for teaching children and adults about living a life of just and good is an effective way to train leaders about leading.
Author Steve Farber’s latest book, Greater Than Yourself The Ultimate Lesson of True Leadership [Doubleday, 2009], has taken the same form of storytelling and uses it to illustrate a process of leading others to be greater than themselves.
GTY Leadership
There are hundreds of books, articles, training classes, theories, techniques and definitions of leadership available in cyberspace, bookstores, and universities.
Farber’s definition of leadership is that, “Real leadership, in other words, is an extreme act rooted in love and motivated by a desire to create a better world-whether it’s the world of your company, team, neighborhood, or family. Simply put, real leadership is Extreme Leadership.”
Through leading in this manner, Farber describes three components of Greater Than Yourself (GTY) leadership:
- Expand yourself by helping others develop skills better than your own.
- Give yourself by giving away all of your knowledge.
- Replicate yourself by asking those you have helped to pass it on and help others.
Leadership Inventory
Before you can give of yourself, you have to expand. And, before doing either, Farber suggests that you take an inventory of every valuable trait or characteristic you demonstrate – take an inventory of “the store called yourself.”
It works best if you take the inventory once a quarter. You should experience growth with each inventory.
When you start giving of yourself, Farber says you will experience a fundamental shift from hoarding knowledge, skills, and talent to helping others by giving away your knowledge.
Creating Leaders
The 3-step process of GTY leadership is completed on a project basis. You select a person or a group of persons and then you begin to tithe a percent of your time each day or week to helping the focus of your project to become a true leader.
Farber demonstrates the process by telling readers a fiction story involving him, a vintage guitar and a mysterious note found in the guitar case.
Leadership Development
The great debate over whether true leaders are born or can be developed lessens as new development theories evolve. Farber teaches true leaders how to give of themselves through his fictional story sample.
The GTY book takes a unique path to building better leaders – telling a story that ends with a moral. The author was someone’s GTY project in the book and in the end he passes on the learning by telling his readers they are his GTY project. And, he asks the reader to pass it on.
While Farber's overall theory is not exactly new, he does put it in a context that is seemingly easier to understand and possibly implement. When leadership is based on love and a true desire to make a better world, expanding oneself so that they give of themselves becomes almost an automatic reaction as is automatically become a role model for the next person - which in effect duplicates oneself.
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