In the popular media, the leader of an organisation is often pictured at the top of some pyramid-shaped organisational chart. Or maybe this leader is an entrepreneurial hero depicted as "way out front" of everyone else, including his or her own employees.
Perhaps it would make a lot more sense to imagine the organisational pyramid as inverted with ourselves - the leaders - at the bottom.
With this position, the leaders influence and power flows upward by example and not downword by words alone. After all, we all know how the word can be contaminated as it filters through the hearts and minds of so many. The greatest power lies at the top - at the point of contact between an organisation and its clients.
If we imagine this pyramid as a heavy weight, balanced on a point, the leader's role is to balance this weight . The leader can help participants to enjoy more thoughtful, caring power. Making sure that no one part of the whole thinks more of itself than any other.
Such a leader has to be "centred". Because so much work is happening "above" the leader, he or she can be freer to pay attention to what is happening to the balance of the whole. If the pyramid were actually a gyroscope, its active balance would be in tune with the earth's rotation through time.
When a leader is in this position at the base of the pyramid there is access to real power.
Think of it this way. The great oceans lie lower than all of the rivers and draws their power as water flows down to it. Is this is the secret of a leaders power? To place one's self below the people by caring less about pride or ego? Like the leaders power, water flows into the sea to return, endlessly, back to the rivers in rain.
Without the people's gifts, the leader has no power.
I wonder what would happen if you asked 'leaders' to justify this perspective?
Posted by: Bruce Lewin | July 31, 2005 at 09:37 PM