Since so much of good consulting involves understanding where opinion is divided, building alignment where possible, and developing momentum behind an action plan, one trap is to get very focused on what others think, and not really develop a distinctive point of view. Clients call this trap ‘borrowing your watch to tell you what time it is.’
The opposite of course is also a trap – the consultant who has the same strong opinion, no matter what others may think (known as ‘if he wants your opinion, he’ll tell it to you’).
A mentor of mine described the middle way here as ‘clients want somebody who knows something about something’ and I’ve found there is a lot of truth in that.
Hence a section here called Point of View. First a few , so you’ll know where I’m coming from at any moment in an actual engagement; then an active conversation in my about the range of leadership topics encountered recently in my work—the ‘evergreen’ and the ‘latest and greatest’, if you will.
These are partnered by another matched pair of selected writings from elsewhere: my own , and selections from the vast literature on leadership.
A footnote on the topic of the vast leadership literature. There’s too much of it! How can one possibly sort through 153M Google hits on leadership, 38M on executive leadership, or 36M on leadership development? You can't, but thankfully you don't need to.
Leadership, like strategy, is one of those challenges where the search for solutions never stops. 'What is leadership?' and 'what makes a good leader?' can take you all week to answer, and you still could be miles away from the answers posed by other equally erudite observers.
As a leader, you need to find what works for you, test it out and see what results you get. These selections for further reference give one person’s view of how to get started with that.
