Leadership and Foolish Choices
People make dumb decisions. We make scores of them everyday, all of which affect us to varying degrees. There are decisions with limited repercussions, such as eating one too many pieces of pizza at lunch. It’s a bad decision, but its ill effects are limited to minor post-meal discomfort.
Other decisions are more far-reaching. Choosing a job or place to live, or maybe your college or degree has a more distinct impact on your life. But what about the decisions that involve others?
As leaders, every decision you make has a snowball effect on others. Your choices cause large an unintended reactions in those you lead. If you tell someone X, and then choose to do Not-X (sorry for the strange philosophical terminology again…), you have undermined everything you have been saying.
We generally call this hypocrisy (which it is), but I think we fail to consider the realistic disturbance it causes in your leadership. So, you have said X and are acting upon Not-X, what happens to those who follow you? Do they choose to go with what you say, or do they choose to follow how you act?
Realistically, I don’t think most people will do either. Most people will take a third option: they leave. If the leadership of an organism does not present a cohesive nature, people naturally leave. Why is this? I don’t know, but I suspect there is an innate sense—an innate desire to follow the leaders that actually do what they say.
I write all of this to say: do your actions mesh with your words? Don’t let your foolish choices undermine what you have worked so hard to build.
Comments
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