People that get to level 4 leadership can see beyond the short-term gains of getting things done as a team. When you develop your team into great leaders there is a force multiplying effect and the impact is far greater than the impact you could have as an individual.

Most leaders don’t get here. Often they’ll cap out at production. The force multiplying effect of developing your team is much higher than a single person’s output.

Developing strong leaders at the company sets it up for success long after you’ve moved on. One of the most important measures for a great leader is how well things work in your absence.

Leaders operating from positional leadership fear that others doing their work makes them obsolete. In contrast, level 4 leaders understand that when your team takes on your responsibilities this frees you up time to do higher level, higher impact work.

When someone on your team can do a task 80% as well as you, give them full responsibility for it.

Investing in a person is inherently risky. They might not go on to become the leader you see in them or they might do really well and move on to their next company. A negative experience here is demoralizing.

Training leaders on your team to do work that you’re great at is a long-term commitment. It will always be easier for you to do the work. Sometimes you need to invest hours in documentation or talking to someone until they are fully capable. It’s very tempting to take the short-term solution and do the work yourself.

Make sure you’re committed to improving yourself. When you train someone to take on your responsibilities, you need to be ready to move up to something more valuable for the company.

Spend the bulk of your time on your highest potential leaders. It’s common to spend time with the people that are struggling the most, but it’s much more effective to take people with great potential and magnify it.

Set aside time to do the work. You should expect to spend as much as 50% of your time developing leaders with great potential.