Thursday, February 18, 2010

Leadership is learning to live with a knife in the back



Unless you are an ascetic monk living out a solo existence in some secluded location (or you bought Ted Kazinski's cabin on EBay) you have to interact with people. This means you have probably seen the darker side of humanity. If you are a leader in any capacity, at any level you will have been stabbed in the back. I used to have a boss that constantly assured me he would "go to Hell and back for me." I never doubted he would, but I always wanted to ask him if I whether I was getting a round trip ticket or was he just going to dispose of my body.

The first few times I was a victim of this I wanted to take steps to guarantee it wouldn't happen again. The longer I have been in leadership positions the more I realize that it is not something to be avoided. It is something to be expected and even more so to be embraced. It becomes an aikido approach to anger-management. Here are some of the ideas I had about living with a knife in your back, but first here is an old picture I did a while back (I'm sure I posted it before, but I can't remember when):

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