It’s really hard to generate capacity, focus, and motivation when you are solely trying to serve your own interests.

Focus and motivation require considerable “other” focus if you are going to really get them right.

Even capacity requires as much focus on the people you are leading as on your own goals.

“Leaders” (I use the quotes to refer to people who are in formal leadership positions but aren’t really leaders) who focus solely on their own goals often limit the capacity of their people (to hold on to their own power, etc.) and ultimately fail to meet their own goals because of it.

I see that play out at a micro level all the time. A manager or director will have some talented people on his or her team. Those people will get developed to a point to fulfill the manager/director’s goals. Often these same managers hoard those people, keep them from moving to other parts of the organization to advance their careers, etc. After a while, the stars burn out and the leader stops meeting his or her goals.

On the other hand, the leaders who try to develop their people, encourage them to move ahead in their careers (even if it means leaving the department or company), and providing a lot of sponsorship, ultimately have success. While they might lose their top people, they wind up with a pipeline of people who want to work for them and strive to succeed. So, in the end, those leaders always have high performing organizations with a high throughput of “star power”.

I believe that to really build capacity, focus and motivation you have to be committed to the other people’s interests. And that is the coolest part of the model. Because when I become committed to their interest, they start leveraging themselves through me and thus the followers become the leaders.