On Leadership

I saw this on an email at work:

"If you lead through fear you will have little to respect; but if you lead through respect you will have little to fear."  Anonymous

Well put. I've seen many brands of leadership, and without fail, those who demand respect and assume they're owed some sort of reverence or obedience are second rate leaders--at best. If you want to be an effective leader you have to give respect, trust your team, and show confidence in your decisions--enough confidence to have those decisions questioned by the people you lead. That may sound counterintuitive but think about it, by putting yourself out there and gaining trust and respect, you're much more likely to get instant buy-in when you actually do need to make command decisions. And, if you somehow find that you're receiving a barrage of challanges and dissent, maybe it's quite simply that you're not ready for leadership. That's fine, not everyone is a leader even whey they have that title. 

I spent four years in the Marine Corps and I can honestly say that this holds true there. Yelling and demanding will only get you so far. To effectively lead smart, talented people you simply must have mutual respect.