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In order to survive and thrive today and tomorrow and next year, we need to rewire ourselves and our organizations.
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"I know way too many senior people who think they're great leaders because they read lots of leadership books, or who think they're staying abreast of the changes in their industry because they're reading about those changes.
Real learning is almost always at least somewhat uncomfortable. It's challenging. It's figuring out how to operate in new ways; questioning your assumptions; putting new ideas into practice. Real learning takes you out of the tried-and-true, and into that murky, disturbing land of I'm-not-very-good-at-this.
And, I submit to you, that kind of learning is central to our success today."
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"The moon has risen. You and your family and friends are gathered around the fire, deciding who will be your next chieftain. Your former leader has died in battle, and this is a solemn and important occasion. The adults speak quietly, the firelight flickering over their faces, while the children and adolescents listen to every word. [...]
This is the most important decision the tribe can make: choose badly, and they could all starve to death, or be overrun by an invading enemy. Choose well, and they can hope for safety, freedom, a measure of prosperity. The discussion continues far into the night.
[...] Our deeply-wired-in sense of what makes a good leader is still there. You can see it every day in how we respond to the leaders in our organizations. Some leaders are merely "appointed": they may have the title and the corner office, but people simply don't commit to them. They have employees, but they don't have followers.
Then there are what I call "accepted" leaders. Sometimes they don't even have the external signs of leadership—they may not have the top job or the big paycheck, but people gravitate toward them. People want to work for and with them; teams coalesce around them and achieve great things.
What's the difference?"
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"The antidote to fear? Pull people out of their panic and self-protective impulses by first acknowledging the difficulties, then raising their eyes and hearts to a possibility of success. At that point you can take advantage of their newly available and hopeful energy to make that possibility a reality.
This is the essence of what I call being strategic: doing a clear and accurate assessment of the current situation, then articulating the possibility of a successful future. And at that point, when you see clearly where you are and where you hope to go, staying strategic means making core directional choices ... about how to achieve that future you've envisioned."
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We've all seen it: a successful employee promoted to manager is given no training and essentially pushed into the deep end and told to swim? According to Andersen, this approach to creating new managers is epidemic. Using an accessible gardening metaphor, Andersen, founder of Proteus International, contends that new managers must have a support system available to train them, while on the job, to become successful managers.
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