Responding to Roy Benford in LO27921 --
>Leadership could be viewed as falling along a continuum defined by two
>extremes. At one extreme, there is leadership by the sword and at the
>other leadership by the baton. The sword of leadership is for directing
>the followers and, more importantly, warding off those seen as rivals.
>It is this view that leads to "the stags fighting and the spilt blood".
>It has its roots in the value of binary competition (winning or losing)
>being the key decision factor over all other human values. The baton of
>leadership is about sharing the role of leadership as appropriate to the
>times and circumstances with a peaceful transition between leaders. An
>unfortunate side affect of a long term of leadership by the sword is the
>absence of potential leaders amongst the followers.
This reminds me of something I once read about leadership in American
Indian tribes; namely, that the war chief of a tribe was in charge of the
fighting but never the tribe and the war chief was always subordinate to
the overall chief of the tribe. In short, the war chief made the
decisions about how to fight and led the other members in battle but the
decision to fight or not rested with the overall chief (something like the
way in which the American military is subordinate to the civilian
government). In corporations, however, the war chief often winds up as
the chief (chief executive officer, that is). The effects, I am certain,
are as described above.
Regards,
Fred Nickols
740.397.2363
nickols@att.net
"Assistance at A Distance"
http://home.att.net/~nickols/articles.htm
--Fred Nickols <nickols@att.net>
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