Leadership
Leadership is a very misunderstood concept in the modern age. In a de-naturalized society, and westernized thinking, it is believed that leadership is from the top down, as the popular leadership pyramid depicts. This way of leadership thinking is wrong.
One only needs to turn to nature, to understand why this way of thinking cannot work.
As most of the readers here should know by now, I look to nature for a balanced view of everyday life … and work. And once again, I’m going to use the humble tree as a reference. A tree asks little and gives much, and without the tree, life will not be possible, so what better example to use.
The strength of a tree is in its roots and its trunk. Without this, the tree could never be a thriving oxygen-giving, shade-giving giant that it is, not to speak of the fruits of the seasons on some.
So with good reason, one can look at the roots and trunk of a tree as the power center of the humble tree. It is also safe to assume, that without this, the tree will not be a tree … yet … most see the branches and leaves as what makes the tree.
The elements can make branches break and leaves ripped off, but as long as the trunk and roots stay intact, the tree will survive for hundreds of years. Insects might attack the trunk or roots and succeed, and the tree will die. Rot can start from inside the trunk and the whole tree will die.
As above so is any organization. Management is the trunk of the tree, history and company tradition are the roots. The branches and twigs and leaves are the staff, that makes the tree complete. If the roots or trunk is rotting from the inside or is not well, the organizational tree will die from the leaves down. Thus the staff … the one thing that makes the tree useful and needed.
Leadership is thus a bottom-up exercise, not a top-down one, like the leadership pyramid.
In some way, the above analogy can be applied even to the pyramid. The strength is in the base … the staff. If the bottom of the pyramid gets weakened, the stability will be lost, and the pyramid will collapse.
As a leader, one must understand, that whatever decisions you make has an effect on the whole organization, and it is true even in normal-day life and family as well. To disrupt the everyday flow of the work process that is working, and don’t need “fixing” by the decisions you as a leader make, will cause a build-up of water at the roots and trunk of your organizations' tree.
This will cause two things to happen:
- The tops of the tree will start to wither and die.
- The roots and trunk will be over-saturated, the rot will set in and the tree will die.
The takeaway from this article:
A tree isn’t a single part of it, it is one organism. What one part does, affects everything else in the organism.
As the roots and trunk of your organization, look after every part of the tree and your organization will thrive. Neglect the rest of the organization through your decisions, and it will wither and die, and lose faith in you as the trunk of the tree. Think of the whole organization before you make decisions, and consult the different parts of the organization in this process.
It is good to have every part of the organization in consensus about a decision. It makes the implementation much smoother.
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