Wednesday, October 28, 2009

What type of leader are you?

"You do not lead by hitting people over the head - that's assault, not leadership."   Dwight D. Eisenhower

I actually laughed out loud when I read this quote.  Instantly I had a visual of an old boss of mine in a meeting - there were only four of us attending (we were the top sales managment).  He was telling us, "you have to bang the information into their heads" (meaning our sales teams)...all the while he was banging his own head into the wall behind him.  Why did we all sit there stunned and let this man go on?  Job security, or just shock - guess I'll never know.  If I knew what I know now, I would have coached him to become a better leader, even if I were "coaching up" as we call it.  ...Be sure to be a non-abusive leader!   And those in the presence of an abusive leader do what you can to share with this person that he/she should not lead in this fashion - show them their stregnths as a leader so they move toward those in times of stress rather than "hitting people (or themselves) over the head."

No comments:

Post a Comment