I had excellent leaders working for me. My inner circles were always comprised of the best of my best and were given the power necessary to lead in their areas of proficiency. This power included leading me when and where necessary. None, including myself, ever attempted to take advantage of our power and influence except to do our best jobs as leaders and followers.
If you read my books, you know I began in ignorance, but experience is the greatest teacher, and I felt I was a good student. My philosophy has always been pragmatic, and all relationships—up, down, or sideways, were always important to me. Instinctively, I made it my job to build those relationships. Somebody had to, and I am not one to wait for things to happen. I make them happen.
Making things happen is one of the essentials that separate leaders from those they lead, who are also leaders within their organization. Leaders who function as sub-leaders below the prime leader also create, but from a relative place of safety in that they are never wholly responsible for what they do. This is not true for the prime leader, the leader of leaders. They are responsible at all times.
Moreover, there are leaders of themselves who have little or no desire to lead others. It is enough being one’s own self in a world that seems to prefer sameness. And there are the leaders within organizations that lead at the beck and call of the “leader of leaders.” They lead, not as leaders of themselves, but as leaders of others. The difference is significant because those led by the prime, leader of leaders are not first and foremost themselves. They are what they are instructed to be, even as they lead.
Sy
.
So well said, as usual. Thanks Sy. Steve M.