Lasting Leadership

Published on October 29, 2017 − Updated on October 29, 2017

Incipit

Leadership is about making others better as a result of our presence and making sure that the impact lasts in our absence. − Sheryl Sandberg, COO Facebook, nowadays.

This quote means that nobody could measure the difference between a leader presence and his/her absence. Fulfilling the role in such a way,

• good things happen like a kind of magic and no any evidence can set apart the leadership from the serendipity contributions.

In such declination of the leadership role,

• the leader acts like the invisible hand of an altruistic God.

When a brilliant leader fulfils the role, the best contribute of each team player is combined with those of the others ones and the overall result will be better than the best single one in the group.

When the best leader's work is done the people say, we did it by ourselves! − Lao Tzu, Taoism founder, ~550 b.C.

In the real world

Things usually works differently from the books rules. So, do not try to identify a leader using some standards because it is wrong to do it. For two fundamental reasons:

1. copycating breaks authenticity;
2. following strict rules breaks creativity.

Under such point of view may not exist a metric for the leadership. It happens or not.

Some few others rules of thumb

• The leadership not always works as supposed to do.

Especially when the environment is not ready to catch the awakening vision yet, or if the leader has not the chance, nor the ability, nor the will to create other leaders [¹].

Unfortunately, when the conditions are not ready for such a vision, all the people will blame the leader. After all − the leader is the leader − s/he is in the spot whatever is the weather.

• Leadership absence or its distance should be wisely accounted into.

Sometimes, leaving the scene, is equivalent to avoid micro-management. Moreover, the missing leadership may stimulate the birth of a new leader.

• The leadership style copycatting or the leader character imitation are always bad choices.

Because the leadership is strongly based onto authenticity and creativity. In good or bad shapes, no one is exactly the copy of anybody else. Therefore, no one could impostor a true leader because a shadow can not shine.

• [¹] A true leader creates other leaders. It means that s/he helps people to emancipate themselves from themselves, from the the old picture that they are used to keep about themselves. Nurturing the desire to became a better version of themselves.

Index of all articles

• Project Management, Decision Making, Technology Innovation, Leadership & Creativity, Economia, Cultura, Società e Costume, Progetti, Idee e di divulgazione.

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The Awakening Leadership (May 22th, 2017)

The Master rules (March 11th, 2017, EN)

La Leadership autorevole (30 novembre, 2016, IT)

Creatività e pensiero laterale (28 marzo 2017, IT)

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(C) 2017, Roberto A. Foglietta, licensed under Creative Common Attribution, Non Commercial, Share Alike, International terms v.4.0 (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0).