Leadership Isn't For Cowards: How to Drive Performance by Challenging People and Confronting Problems

Chapter 31

Did You Seriously Think That Would Work?

Sometimes you enact a strategy to inspire your people and it fails miserably. Sometimes something looks fantastic on paper, but when you put it into practice, it falls apart. Things like this happen because you weren’t properly observing your followers and their needs.

Remember the widget makers from earlier in the book? We talked about how making the widget makers happy was a part of their leader’s job. However, there is a part of the widget maker example that we did not address because I wanted to save it for a special chapter. This is that chapter.

When the widget factory was built, they began making widgets. When the demand for widgets started to grow, they had to have more widgets, which meant they had to have more widget makers. Soon, there were so many widget makers that they needed something else. What did they need? That’s right; they needed widget-maker supervisors. Why did they need widget-maker supervisors? To make sure the widgets got made.

Well, the market for widgets grew and grew. Then there was a need for—you guessed it—widget-maker managers to manage the widget-maker supervisors who were supervising the widget makers. Why did they need widget-maker managers? Right again, to be sure that the widget-maker supervisors were doing their jobs correctly. Because those widget-maker supervisors were just a little too close to the widget makers.

Then they hired widget-maker directors to direct the widget-maker managers. ...