📅 Thought for today:
‘If you think you’re leading and no one is following you, then you’re only taking a walk.’
— Afghan Proverb
#thoughtfortoday #leadership #badmanagement #absence #handsoff
This quote is often attributed to John C Maxwell, as he used it in his book “The 5 Levels of Leadership” but I am reasonably certain it is older than that.
I’ve been thinking a lot about leadership this week because I am about to start management & leadership training with two companies, and I’ve been asked to develop prequel and sequel training to go around it.
The essence of leadership and examples of good leadership have been popping out of my research.
The place I am looking now is bad leadership, and in particular, the leaders who have the job title yet do not lead in any way – they stand aside, or the ones that don’t build a team around a shared purpose and find themselves shouting from a mountain top.
In a curious way, their people love them, because they do not measure, monitor and feedback on performance or behaviours. These leaders leave people to get on with things in a vacuum, and they love it. And in one way this can be good – agency and autonomy.
Sadly when things go awry, they don’t know why, and often don’t know what to do.
But hey, they are lovely people to work with.
