For people who want regular personal or professional development advice from a qualified executive coach.
What Ancient Egyptians Can Teach Us About Leadership
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To be honest I have no idea what the ancient Egyptians can teach us about leadership. Probably it would be something to do with having slaves and being ruthless. Or, maybe it would be about claiming credit for the work of aliens! You see, this isn't really about ancient Egyptians, it's about pyramids. All this week I am going to be writing about How to Lead Without Being In Control. And on Friday I'll be giving a talk about it to all my clients, that you can attend for free. So what's that got to do with pyramids? Well, think about your classic organisational chart. What does it look like? It has a CEO/MD at the top, a few directors, more assistant directors, more heads of service, more senior managers, more middle managers and more frontline staff. In other words, it's a pyramid. And, typically, we draw this with the CEO at the top and the frontline people at the bottom. This is intentional and goes back to the power dynamics of early twentieth century companies. It was about who had power to tell which other people what to do. We still draw organisational diagrams the same way. And, in many regards the power dynamic still holds. But, the way modern organisations work is really quite different. For a start, many people in modern organisations are highly-educated knowledge workers. They don't need to be told what to do, they need to be freed up to do their best work. Achieving that is pretty complex work and something I love to help teams with. But it takes more than a couple of blog posts to explain. However, there is a mental hack that can help everyone, at any level, to become a better leader. That is to invert the pyramid. What I mean by this is simply to flip the org chart in your head. Put the CEO at the bottom and the frontline staff at the top. This changes the frame at every level in the organisation. It says,
Feels very different doesn't it? Without actually reorganising anything. And here's the thing, you don't even need to whole organisation to think like this. That might be a change that's beyond your control. But, if you think like that, you'll become a better leader, without gaining any more control, in a flash. Have a beautiful day, Stephen PS I hope I didn't cause any offense to any Egyptians, ancient or modern. |
HeRO Chronicles
For people who want regular personal or professional development advice from a qualified executive coach.
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