I sat in a meeting with three other managers and the director and read the document twice while the meeting went on. I could hear the Director read through the document but I was stuck on one sentence that I didn’t understand.
The manager will cultivate a leader to leader environment.
“What is a leader to leader environment?” I asked and was answered with, “I don’t know.” I left the meeting on a mission. I needed to know what leader to leader meant. I found out and my mission ended with a book that the Director had all the managers read.
The book is called “Turn the Ship Around” by David Marquet. Basically the writer outlines his experience as a leader of a submarine. He realized that he could not have a crew that would just listen and follow every order that would be dangerous and he had to cultivate leaders at every level.
So I told that story and mentioned a pretty great book (it really is good and worth reading) to say that I am a leader and a follower and everyone should be. There was this quote when I was a kid that always bugged me.
Too many chiefs
Leadership is guidance, inspiration, motivation, and leadership has to come from within. There is this concept of “buy in” that everyone on team needs to have for a project to be completely successful. Buy in is the willingness to participate in an endeavor. No one can force buy in from a team member this has to be inspired and motivated.
Leaders are needed at every level in a team and the top level should be more of a position of service for all other levels that are the leaders.
I have also heard “Lead follow or get out of the way” Lets change this to Lead yourself and help others.
The Corrigan Encore 