I read a quote recently from Simon Sinek.
“Bad leaders provide the structure to come to work. Good leaders provide the passion to come to work.”
Adapting that a little, I’d say: “Cowardly leaders provide the structure to come to work; True Leaders provide the reason, and passion, and enthusiasm and excitement- to come to work.”
Structure vs. Passion
Cowardly leaders operate from an autocratic, dictatorial perspective. A cowardly leader is very power-centric, and power requires discipline and structure and order to be in place. Many of us have worked in organizations that encouraged free thought, and strategic thinking. In organizations that advocated and celebrated “thinking outside the box.” I’m not a big fan of that term, but we all know what it means.
These are organizations that are, almost without exception, successful. As autocratic as Apple was under Steve Jobs, it nevertheless strongly, even forcefully, encouraged strategic, radical, “let’s do something that’s never been done” thinking.
Cowardly leaders want, and need, for others to hear, listen, and obey their ideas. For theirs are the only ideas that matter. Structure is mandated from the top down. Knowledge is power, therefore, delegating and sharing knowledge with staff members is akin to sharing their power. This they cannot do.
A Reason To Believe
One of my favorite Rod Stewart songs is “Reason to Believe.”
“Knowing, that you lied, straight-faced, while I cried. Still, I look to find a reason to believe.”
That’s what many of us do when working in a cowardly leadership environment. We look past the lies, the political spin and the continuous disregard of ethics and policy. As a True leader ourselves, we want to find the grains of leadership when and where they accumulate. We are looking for any reason to believe, so that we have something to grasp onto when head into the workplace.
We want a True Leader who leads with passion. Whereas a cowardly leader gives his or her employees tasks and assignments to accomplish, a Leader (capital L Leader) gives his or her colleagues and team members something to believe in: Passion.
A True Leader needs passion and to inspire people to believe:
Know The Difference
Know the difference between structure and passion. Be passionate. Be the leader of your organization, regardless of how large or small it is. If you work in a cowardly leadership environment, don’t assume that means you have to be one yourself.
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