Leader, your enterprise mirrors you. Compartmentalization is a myth. Those you lead will follow who you are and not just what you do. Leadership is not just pointing direction. It is not only casting vision and motivating your enterprise to pursue it. Leadership is also about being a model.
People who serve under your leadership are not just looking for instructions from you. They are looking for a model on how to carry themselves. They are looking at you to learn what passion for the vision of your enterprise looks like.
That is why the best way to train leaders transcends training courses. The best way to build great leaders and organizations is not in the training manuals you put together. The best way to train leaders and build a great enterprise is in by showing them how to be.
everyone knows leaders are not perfect; how they carry themselves when their imperfections surface determines what their organization will be
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Hence, the stumble of the leader becomes the stumble of the enterprise. Remember: compartmentalization is a myth. Organizations do suffer at a leader’s consistent bad character. People looking at leaders in your organization from the outside make your leader synonymous with your organization.
Those you lead within your organization merge who you are as a person, with your function. In other words, there is no way what you do cannot be somehow attached to your function.
For example, in instances of ‘good leaders with bad character’, there is minimal respect. Any respect given will be likely for your function and not you as a leader per se.
The reason is no one, including you leader, is one-dimensional. Thus, we only get to know people better when we can see them in more dimensions. When your team sees you stumble, they are not so much bothered about your stumble.
They are more interested in how you get up. They are curious to see if you will take ownership or responsibility. They want to see whether you will uphold the integrity that you put in their training manuals and on the values of your enterprise.
However, how you respond in your stumble is the model your teams will embrace. Thus, the stumble of the leader can be the stumble of the organization.
How you come back from a misstep, not the misstep itself is what your team is watching and may just mimic. They may follow wholly, in part or even better your act. Either way, leader, take care that you do not make your stumble that of your team’s.
Is there any relationship between how a leaders carries themselves and what their enterprise becomes?
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