H WF’s Reviews > Leaders Eat Last: Why Some Teams Pull Together and Others Don't > Status Update

Leadership is not a license to do less; it is a responsibility to do more. Leadership takes work. It takes time and energy. Leadership is always a commitment to human beings.

Feeling a shared burden is one of the things that brings us together. Less hardship means less of a need to cooperate, which means less oxytocin. Few of us volunteer to help people in need before the natural disaster - only after it… abundance destroys value. It is not when things come easily that we appreciate them, but when we have to work hard for them.. it is the struggle that helps give that thing value.

There is no getting away from the truth: there is simply nothing that can replace real, face-to-face human interaction… not only are virtual relationships a poor substitute for real ones, but social media can actually make us feel lonelier.

Addiction, in any form, undermines relationships. The desire for isn’t at gratification allows no time for relationships to develop. Digital communication can stand in the way of depending our relationships. And social media can deny us the chance to create real relationships to begin with. Perhaps, even worse, it can be devastating to our own sense of self-worth.

This economy is bad. We should be figuring out how to give the employees more, not less. The difference between Costco and companies like Welch GE is that Costco used layoffs as a last resort, whereas GEs of the world use them as routine strategy… customers will never love a company until the employees love it first.

Leadership is not a rank worn on a collar. It is a responsibility that hinges almost entirely on character. Leadership is about integrity, honesty, and accountability. All components of trust. Leadership comes from not telling us what we want to hear, but rather what we need to hear. To be a true leader, to engender deep trust and loyalty, starts with telling the truth.

In physics, power is the transfer of energy. We measure the power of a lightbulb in watts. The higher the wattage, the more electricity is transferred into light and heat and the more powerful the bulb. Organizations and their leaders operate exactly the same way. The more energy is transferred from the top of the org to those doing the job, the more powerful the org and the leader.

The goal of a leader is to give no orders. Leaders are to provide direction and intent and allow others to figure out what to do and how to get there. The challenge most organizations face is that they train people to comply, not think. If people only comply, we can’t expect people to take responsibility for their actions. Responsibility is doing what is right. Obedience is doing as we are told.

And that’s what the best leaders do. They share what they know, ask knowledgeable people for help performing their duties and make introductions to create new relationships within their networks. Poor leaders hoard these things, falsely believing it is their intelligence, rank or relationships that make them valuable.

If he was going to succeed, he would have to learn to trust his bottom-ranked crew more than he trusted himself… he couldn’t have his crew blindly follow his orders… now he needed everyone to think, not just do.