A Leader’s Legacy by my good friends and colleagues Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner was in my enormous “welcome home pile” last week. As always with this dynamic duo, the research is sound, the ideas first-rate, and the stories (stories—remember?) fabulous. But what leaped out from the Contents page was this chapter title: “Leaders Should Want to Be Liked.” Hooray! I have always thought the “You don’t have to be liked, but you have to be respected” Macho Crap was just that—Crap! Moreover, dangerous crap. The Big Idea here … ta-da … is that we’ll work harder for someone we like than someone we don’t. Alas, it is indeed a “big idea.” (K & P cite some very “tough” bosses in support of this topic.)Whoops! One More Recommendation
A Leader’s Legacy by my good friends and colleagues Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner was in my enormous “welcome home pile” last week. As always with this dynamic duo, the research is sound, the ideas first-rate, and the stories (stories—remember?) fabulous. But what leaped out from the Contents page was this chapter title: “Leaders Should Want to Be Liked.” Hooray! I have always thought the “You don’t have to be liked, but you have to be respected” Macho Crap was just that—Crap! Moreover, dangerous crap. The Big Idea here … ta-da … is that we’ll work harder for someone we like than someone we don’t. Alas, it is indeed a “big idea.” (K & P cite some very “tough” bosses in support of this topic.)