A roofer once offered to drop my chimney with a shotgun. I said brick by brick — and that choice turns out to be the whole of how leadership actually improves.
A roofer once offered to bring my chimney down with a shotgun. One shell with the pellets removed (for safety), he said, blown at the bottom and the whole stack drops into its own void. I told him no; take it down brick by brick. That roof is still standing twenty years later, and somewhere in that choice is the story of how leadership improves.
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I was the board chair. I'd done the work and I had the evidence. I still couldn't see the one thing everyone else in the room could.
I was the board chair and we were planning to send interns into a complicated (dangerous) part of the world. One board member kept pressing on liability. I'd done the work — thoroughly. I had the evidence to prove it, So I did prove it. Again, and a little louder each time. It took a colleague pulling me aside after the meeting to show me the one thing everyone else except me could already see.
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She wanted to know how to train her team to follow her. Then I asked what her business actually does, in one sentence.
A local business owner told me her staff wouldn’t listen. They didn’t sell the way she wanted, didn’t greet customers the way she wanted, didn’t clean the store the way she wanted. She asked how to train them better. Then I asked her what her business actually does — in one sentence. She couldn’t answer that either.
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Stability isn't always a sign of health. Sometimes it's a sign of stuck.
Nothing was really broken — but change simply hadn't been on the table for years. That kind of perpetual sameness starts to wear a place down. It has a name. And your most motivated team members are already feeling it.
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