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Thursday, September 8, 2011

Rope Leadership

Peter Drucker wrote, “You manage things, you lead people.”

I’ve nothing against management. The Army taught me “All computing is logistics.” Of course file cabinets mostly stand there and hold stuff.

Took a quiet minute to think about the leadership phrase, “Asses and elbows.” Conjures what I see of someone in a crouch moving forward in a motivated manner.

Rope Leadership is a useful concept. Ever try to push a rope? Or lead from behind?

How can you further develop this meme?

SalesLabs Rainmaker series returns to the Capital Technology Management Hub, Tuesday, September 13th with 300 seconds of Mark Your Territory. The featured CTMH speaker will be Professor Steve Gladis, author of The Agile Leader. Come join us!

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Dick:

The only way to push a rope is to freeze it beforehand.

That takes a lot of resources and is uncomfortable when pushing and the window is pretty small to be effective.

Rope leadership is useful to give a helping hand - it is not intended to pull along those not carrying their own weight.