There seems to be a wave of ‘management’/ ‘executive’ (quoting for the laughability of those words, as in this) advice on how to Lead. Mostly, on how to push underlings into following better i.e., more, towards your goals.
Which is wrong in many ways:
- Your goals are ulterior, or very inferior. If you lead in such a pushing way, your team members don’t give a r.ts a.. about your goals, objectives, strategy, or whatever, and even less, much less, about you. They’ll be in it not to get punished by being fired too early ’cause they know to be fired anyway. And by matter of speech (if you’d take it as a pointer, you’d miss my point) they’ll phone the WBC on the details of your funeral.
- If you whip, you will get whipped. More, harder, longer than an eye for an eye [Interesting side note: That iconic reference was originally only about business transactions, nothing physical, to get even but no more than even].
- You don’t push, at most pull a bit into the right direction. At best, plead for the ulterior motives, the lofty goals out there. That have nothing to do with you. You are redundant, replaceable, and guess what – you will be replaced more often than not on the verge of achieving your own slave’s targets because someone else will reap your benefits. But then again, if your goal is really ulterior and you honestly mean it, you don’t care! Don’t care about all the effort, and the gains being spread so wide around you. You do care about that ulterior goal being reached, not any other reward let alone with the mammon from hell.
- If you push, the grader (like in this) will only dig itself in.
- If you push, all words will be called out for their emptiness before they’re out of your mouth. ‘Supporting creativity / out-of-the-box thinking’..? People will know on what side their bread is buttered.
- And more.
Which all will make you a deliriously stressed-out fool.
One that will have done irreparable damage to many around you. That you should pay everyday for the rest of your life. You make them bleed, you will bleed.
Why not go out in the effective direction, by Leading …? Leading towards ulterioir goals because they’re worth it. Not by whipping, bleeding, but by pleading (mostly with empty hands..!) others into rightly-oriented action.
[Edited to add: OK, right today, as this pre-scheduled post appears, this, to the same effect…]
OK, I’ll leave you now with an upbeat picture:
[Clearly, a bridge. Cala near Hoofddorp]
