A Leader Gets a Group of People From Point A To Point B
Bad leaders choose the wrong goal or fail to choose one at all. Their group ends up worse off. Divisive leaders optimize for a subgroup and the ‘in’ group is more happy, the ‘out’ group is less happy. They are playing a zero-sum game. Selfish leaders are an extreme of the divisive leader–the selfish leader IS the ‘in’ group.
Good leaders choose a goal where everyone wins, and they achieve it.
The better the leader, the bigger and better the outcomes and the bigger and broader ’everyone’ turns out to be. Alan Mulally famously turned Ford around, taking them from losing $17B/year to profitable and growing. He got Ford’s zero-sum-game-playing shareholders, executives, employees, car dealers, bankers, factory workers, union leaders, and parts suppliers to align, sacrifice, work, and win or lose together.
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Thank you to Chris Jenson from the Table Group who was my coach and first told me “a leader gets a group of people from point A to point B” and I liked that statement so much I kept repeating it and thinking about it and blogging about it.