My Personal Leadership Journey
Mark J. Crocco
The quality of life in any organization is impacted more by the quality of leadership than by any other single factor. This undeniable reality is the driving force behind Integrity Leadership Development Inc. My journey through life has primarily been a leadership journey. For me, life has been about the passionate pursuit of providing leadership for others, while actively seeking to develop the leadership skills of others. My personal leadership journey began on the athletic fields of my youth. My participation in athletic competition throughout my childhood and into my high school and college years was where I first tasted what it meant to lead and influence others. The world of athletics taught me the value of teamwork and interdependency among human beings who shared a common purpose, vision and value system with one another. Athletics taught me that there are no limits to what a team can achieve together when all the members of a team are willing to discipline themselves to work together unselfishly.
Effective leadership requires adequate preparation. Upon graduation from high school, I made a conscious decision to invest the next eight years of my life in an educational process that would prepare me for a lifetime of leadership. Those years of education brought many trusted leaders and mentors into my life. Many of these mentors personally invested their lives in me and shaped my vision of leadership. Through their lives, I learned the timeless leadership principle of leading by example. My educational mentors taught me that leadership is about practicing in your life what you profess with your lips. In essence, leadership is about walking your talk. Their leadership and influence in my life taught me firsthand, that people will only follow leaders they trust. This requires gaining credibility with others through a lifestyle of personal authenticity and integrity. If you can’t lead and manage yourself, you are not in a position to lead and manage others. Through their guidance and example, I learned that self-leadership is a prerequisite to leading others.
Some of the most effective leaders in our country lead in non-profit organizations. Leading in the world of non-profits requires inspiring people to give their time, energy and resources to the mission of an organization without financial reward. For fifteen years, it was my privilege to lead others in the non-profit world of pastoral ministry. In this world, a community of people needed to find their unity in a clearly defined and inspiring mission. In these ministry years, I learned that leadership is about creating a sense of community for others, while helping others to discover and use their gifts in service to others, while fulfilling their common mission. As a leader, I was constantly energized by the privilege of participating in a community with others where the sum of our parts was always greater than any individual part. This experience transformed my vision of leadership and teamwork and presently shapes my work with organizations.
Sixteen years ago, I left the non-profit world and entered the corporate world with the ultimate objective of developing leadership in organizations. Integrity Leadership Development Inc exists to help business owners increase the bottom-line productivity and profitability of their businesses through leadership development. One of the greatest joys of my life has been the joy of participating in the process of individual and organizational transformation through leadership development.
Our world is in desperate need of moral, ethical and character-based leadership. Through the years, it has become clear to me that effective leadership is leadership that changes and transforms the lives of others. Integrity Leadership Development Inc has created The Catalytic Leadership model which is designed to empower leaders to function as “catalysts of change” in their organizations. Through the years, it has been my privilege to be an agent of change through the process of leadership development in the automobile, banking and transportation industries as well as in many non-profit organizations. The need to develop leaders through the process of leadership development is a need that exists in every segment of the business world and within every educational and religious setting. Our approach is a hands-on approach of partnering with business owners and their management teams. We work on-site in their businesses teaching, modeling and mentoring what Catalytic Leadership is all about.
Every leader must acknowledge that no leader ever ultimately “arrives” in their leadership journey. All leaders will experience leadership failure in their careers. This is why all leaders must build accountability into their lives. As a leader, I have known failure in my own leadership journey. If you are a leader who is reading these words, so have you. Every time a leader fails, a leader is presented with an invitation to assume personal responsibility and ownership of their lives with the goal of learning from their mistakes and failures. Effective leaders are humble and transparent leaders who are not afraid to acknowledge their failures and shortcomings.
Effective leaders are leaders who have a clear sense of purpose and direction for their lives. The work of Integrity Leadership Development Inc flows out of my own personal mission statement. “My purpose is to be a catalyst of change in the lives of others bringing God’s truth and touch to their lives for their growth and His glory.” Over forty years ago, the Lord Jesus Christ, the single most influential and effective leader in history entered and transformed my life. Through God’s grace, and the timeless wisdom and principles of Scripture, Integrity Leadership Development Inc is seeking to fulfill its mission and my own of developing leaders who develop their people.
The Catalytic Leadership model of Integrity Leadership Development Inc is a model that calls leaders to a place of humble servant-hood, dynamic internal transformation and cutting-edge discernment. If you are a business owner who is interested in building a character-based and a relationally-driven leadership team that will value your team members and customers, we need to talk. It would be my privilege to discuss how Integrity Leadership Development Inc. could potentially increase the bottom-line productivity and profitability of your organization through leadership development.