Leadership

Toby is brilliant. And a problem. Somebody I know calls everybody of a certain type “a Toby”, because that was the name of the first one she encountered. If you come into a company as a consultant and begin asking questions, Toby’s name will come up a lot. Because Toby knows the things that everybody else just takes for granted. Toby can do the things nobody else can do, and understands the things that nobody else can quite grasp, so everybody else leaves them to him....

We get the leaders we deserve. Partly because we accept as unstated fact that we need leaders. The people who think it’s important that someone is in charge, are, oddly enough, the ones in charge. The rest of us aren’t so bothered, so we aren’t. And consequently we don’t get to push the point that maybe it’s OK to have less leadership, because we aren’t responsible for the conversation. For some years now, I’ve been quite visible online....