The Leading Edge:
Leadership Level Generosity – Take the risk and give yourself away

By Heather Manzano, a certified John Maxwell Team coach, speaker, and trainer.

Think about this for a moment: What do you believe about generosity? How does it present itself in your life? Does it show up as a feeling? Is it a state of doing or being? Is it a “pay it forward” to someone else as a thank you for something done for you? Perhaps it is all of these things wrapped up in a single quality – the quality of generosity.

Chapter nine of John Maxwell’s bestselling book The 21 Indispensable Qualities of a Leader is dedicated specifically to this beautiful leadership attribute. A quality, according to Webster’s dictionary, is defined as “a characteristic or feature that someone or something has” and “a high value or excellence.” For us to become excellent in something, it must be practiced and generosity is no exception.

How many times do we practice generosity?

Too often we tie generosity to the giving of money or material things, but there is so much more to it when we take a closer look. Money and material things are easy to give while our time, our value, and our influence all require much more work to share.

There are always ways of earning more money or getting more things, but time is finite, value is personal, and influence can be lost with one bad choice. Being generous with these things is much more of a risk, but they also come with bigger rewards. Big generosity involves risk, and developing this quality on a leadership level requires being open to that risk.

John Maxwell exemplified big generosity when he was first presented with the idea of forming the John Maxwell Team. He shared that one of his first thoughts was the risk of giving his name to others. He had spent years building the character, credibility, and integrity that was associated with his name. What would he do if he gave it to others and they defamed it in some way? Yet, he had a sense of purpose and destiny that he knew needed more than just his hands and feet to accomplish. This called him to take the risk and to be generous by allowing others the use of his name, character, and credibility. He needed this team to help him carry out a dream that was bigger than himself. This level of leadership generosity is given to others in a way that cannot be returned.

Just like John gave the people on his team something they could not give themselves, they in turn, gave to him something that he could not give to himself: spreading John’s message of leadership all over the world!

What are you willing to risk? What are you willing to do for someone else that they cannot do for themselves?

This principle was again driven home to me when my mentor, Paul Martinelli, VP of Business Development of the John Maxwell team, helped me to understand that I needed to give away whatever it was that I wanted more. If it was forgiveness, I needed to be generous with forgiveness. If it was help, I needed to be generous in offering my assistance to others.

I put generous leadership into practice when my business was in its early stages. What I truly wanted more of was paying clients that were as eager to learn about growth as I was to teach them. It was about that time that I met a young mother just starting out in her career. We spoke over lunch one day and as I listened to the longing to learn in her voice I felt like I was presented with the opportunity to reach across the table and take the hand of a younger version of myself. I wanted to help her learn what I wished I had known at her age.

As she expressed her desire for a mentor, I shared my rates. I knew that paying for this would be a stretch for her. While I have a strong belief that it is important for people to make a financial investment in themselves when it comes to growth, I decided to take a different stand on this one. I would put generosity to the test. I would do this one for me and the development of the quality within me. I told her I believed in her and wanted to help her grow, so I offered her six free mentoring sessions.

The difference mentoring made for her was incredible. For me, it was immeasurable. I believe that was a catalyst for the paying, growth-oriented clients that have come into my business ever since.

Generosity begets generosity and it starts by taking a risk and giving yourself away.

About Heather:

Heather Manzano is a certified coach, speaker, trainer, corporate culture strategist, communication developer and leadership lover! She is an Executive Director and President’s Advisory Council member with the John Maxwell team and the owner of Manzano Consulting. Her goal is to help businesses, organizations, teams, and individuals lift their leadership lids and live up to their full potential.

Heather has over twenty-five years of corporate experience with proven results, holding positions in senior management, employee development, culture creation, team building, leadership, and change management. She has over two decades of experience in training teams of employees, managers and executives in every aspect of administration and leadership development.

Heather’s personal passion is to add value to others by being an agent of change and a facilitator of growth while working to help companies grow through maximizing their human capital potential.

Heather lives in upstate New York with her husband and two children.