Observations/Reflections: On Moving too Fast
Category: Leadership
Status: Dictated and Reviewed
Written: 12/06/2011
Published: 12/23/2011

If a leader moves too fast, he will leave his team behind. You cannot move faster than you can move your team. A leader can demand an action, but each time he operates in this way, he draws down on his "relationship equity (influence)." Sometimes this is necessary, but it always comes with a price, for when a leader runs out of this "equity", all he has left is authority.

Influence comes from inside the leader; authority comes from outside the leader. In the final analysis, even a dictatorship is a democracy (Ghadaffi learned this the hard way). The dictator's authority works only as long as the people don't unite en masse against him.