I was inspired to write this week’s article by a quote from my favorite author, John C. Maxwell. John Maxwell says: “Leadership develops daily, not in a day.” This is an important message, and it is one that I embrace. It is why I keep taking on new leadership roles in Toastmasters every year.

A New Role Brings New Challenges

One of the great things about volunteering for new leadership roles is that it brings new challenges and learning opportunities. It can bring new responsibilities and/or a new team to lead. Or you can have new responsibilities while working with the same team.

For example, this year (July 2025 to June 2026) I have volunteered to be the Vice President of Membership for my Toastmasters club. This is a new role I have never done before, and it will challenge me to learn new responsibilities and to develop new skills and strategies for fulfilling those responsibilities. I am still working alongside the same people, but my role has changed.

For the past four years I was serving as Vice President of Education for my Toastmasters club. Serving in this role for four years in a row means I was in my comfort zone after a couple of years serving in the same role. But now I have a new role, which brings new challenges and opportunities for learning.

Leadership Is Built in the Small Moments

When I asked ChatGPT for thoughts on what it means to become a leader one day at a time, one of the suggestions it provided was that leadership development happens through daily choices, actions, and habits – not grand gestures. This is so true. Being a leader isn’t always about making major decisions. Sometimes it is the smallest decisions that make a lasting impact on those we lead.

For example, when I first signed on as Vice President of Education for my Toastmasters club, the way club meeting roles were assigned was done by people volunteering to take on meeting roles. This would sometimes leave gaps in the agenda that had to be filled on the night of a club meeting.

I proposed the idea of preassigned meeting roles, but the club voted no on making this change. I still saw value in this change, so I started emailing people leading up to each meeting and asking them to take on meeting roles. This became a regular habit where I encouraged members to take on meting roles, and this led to filled agendas each week.

Through this new style of meeting role assignment, club members came to see what it was like to have preassigned meeting roles, and we voted on my proposed change a second time. This time everyone voted yes, and preassigned meeting roles was implemented as a new system in our club.

Through small actions over time, I brought about an important change in how my Toastmasters club operates. And members who originally voted no to making the change now appreciate how our club operates using our new system of preassigned meeting roles.

Daily Disciplines That Shape Great Leaders

Another suggestion from ChatGPT is that specific habits like reading, reflecting, listening, and taking initiative contribute to consistent growth as a leader. Reading is an especially great way to develop as a leader. When you read books, whether it is by John Maxwell or other authors, you gain new perspectives and ideas on how to lead others effectively. You can learn from the mistakes and successes of other leaders by reading what that have experienced,

Reflecting is also an important part of developing as a leader. When you take time to think, or even write, about the leadership decisions you have made and the actions you have taken as a leader, you can look back on them and learn from them. I like to write in a journal every evening, and it helps me to learn from my experiences.

Listening is important as well. No matter how experienced or knowledgeable you are, you can often learn something new from other people. You may also find that even when you think you understand a situation, when you listen to someone else’s perspective, you may find you misunderstood or misjudged the situation. Listening carefully to others is also a great way to find new ideas and to show the people that you work with that you appreciate them and their ideas.

Finally, taking initiative can lead to personal growth as a leader. I am doing this by organizing a non-Toastmasters networking event with four speakers. This will challenge me to step outside of my comfort zone and to work with people who I have not worked with before.

Overcoming Setbacks and Staying Committed

ChatGPT also shared the importance of resilience, learning from mistakes, and staying focused even when progress feels slow. This is also something John Maxwell teaches. He even wrote two books on the subject: “Failing Forward” and “Sometimes You Win, Sometimes You Learn”.

I have learned and become a better leader through mistakes I have made during my leadership journey. For example, I learned two important lessons about effective delegation by mistakes I made while serving as chair of the education and training committee for my Toastmasters district.

The first mistake was delegating an important role to a member of the committee without asking her first. She was upset that I assigned her this role without checking with her first. Even though she had offered to help at our training event, I should have talked to her first.

I took full responsibility for the mistake and apologized to her. She appreciated the apology and agreed to take on the role I delegated to her. We then went on to run a successful online training event.

My second delegation mistake was assigning a job to someone without properly training her in how to perform the task. This task was creating breakout rooms in the Zoom software for an online training event. I didn’t know how to create breakout rooms, and I was afraid of making a mistake, so I delegated this task to someone else. She didn’t create the breakout rooms properly, which caused a delay in the training.

The results from both delegation mistakes are that I learned two important lessons about leadership. When you delegate an important task to someone, especially in a volunteer environment, make sure you speak to them first and give them the opportunity to say yes to the assignment. Also, when you delegate to someone it is important to train them and ensure they know how to perform the task and be there to help them if they need assistance.

As you can see, leaders make mistakes, but a mistake is not the end of the world. It is simply an opportunity for learning.

Measuring Progress and Celebrating Growth

Another suggestion from ChatGPT is that developing as a leader includes tracking growth over time and recognizing how far you’ve come. This is where writing in a journal comes in handy. You could even ask your team members to give you feedback on how effectively you are leading them.

With journaling, you can capture your thoughts on how effectively you are leading your team. As you progress as a leader, you can look back at past journal entries to see how far you have come.

When your only perspective is your own, how can you improve? This is where getting feedback from your team members has value., Even if it has to be anonymous feedback, it can still be valuable.

 When you give your team a chance to share their thoughts on how effectively you are supporting and leading them, you can learn from their perspectives. For example, maybe a leader thinks he is doing a great job about regularly checking on the progress of his team. But the team feels like he doesn’t trust them by checking in so often. If the team has the opportunity to share this feedback, the leader can work with the team to identify a way he can monitor progress without being a dreaded micromanager.

Conclusion

Becoming a leader one day at a time means embracing leadership as a lifelong journey – not a destination. True leaders understand that mastery is never final; there’s always more to learn, especially as roles evolve and teams change. Even within your current team, each day brings new opportunities to grow, adapt, and lead with greater purpose. Leadership isn’t about having all the answers – it’s about staying committed to learning, improving, and showing up with intention every single day.