Business School Professor Barry Posner of UCSC has this great TED talk where he sums up leadership in two sentences:
- I make a difference.
- I can’t do it alone.
It’s wonderful talk. Go check it out.
I drew this cartoon a few weeks before I saw this TED talk, but when I did see it, I went “Aha!!!!”
i.e. The image wasn’t just wishful thinking on my part, it actually has some real-world validity. Thanks, Barry!
The other thing I find interesting about leadership culture: the more you delve into it, the simpler it seems.
Sure, you could bury yourself in white papers till the cows come home.
But simple things like good manners, compassion, focus, core values… none of these key ingredients are complicated. It’s just a matter of will.
Speaking of the latter: it seems a lot of companies have a lot of trouble coming up with a list of core values.
The reason for that is simple. It’s because they don’t actually believe them.
They just want something that sounds good. They just want to sound smart without offending anyone.
I don’t know why they would want that. Belief-free, smart sounding, risk-obverse people are the opposite of what leadership is all about.
