Don’t Be Shell Shocked
By Geoff Wasserman \ CEO of ShowCase Marketing
Telling the old story the other day to my 3 kids about about Humpty Dumpty, I had to wonder how any egg in his right mind should’ve seen that coming…top-heavy, sit on a wall on purpose, great fall…splat.
As leaders, when something breaks or comes crashing down as the result of some decisions we made at some point, it’s easy to point fingers, or to simply fix the problem, recover, and move on. But, for leaders committed to growth, there’s a principle that usually applies:
“We are where we are, because that’s where we wanted to be.”
Trace your steps back, your emotions back, your judgment back. Is it possible that somewhere along the line, we were warned, had a feeling about the splat, but sat on the wall anyway? At what level did we “want to be there”? Trace the decision back to that point, figure out the core value/motivation that drove the decision to risk sitting on the wall, and you might be surprised with the root you uncover that might even be driving other decisions. Leaders have “blind spots”. Great leaders put people and processes in place to protect themselves from themselves, and are comfortable putting pride aside and exposing their blind spots to their inner circle of leadership.
As a great leader once said…”Pride comes before a fall.” (Nope, that wasn’t Humpty Dumpty).