Tribes: We need you to lead us

by Seth Godin

that requires leadership.

It’s discomfort that creates the leverage that makes leadership worthwhile.

Curious people count. Not because there are a lot of them, but because they’re the ones who talk to people who are in a stupor. They’re the ones who lead the masses in the middle who are stuck.

The secret is being willing to be wrong.

The desire to fail on the way to reaching a bigger goal is the untold secret of success.

Understanding Charisma Think about the charismatic leaders you’ve encountered. They might be young or old, rich or poor, black or white, male or female, extroverted or shy. In fact, the only thing they seem to have in common is that they are leaders. I think most people have it upside down. Being charismatic doesn’t make you a leader. Being a leader makes you charismatic. There are leaders with speech impediments and a fear of public speaking. Leaders way down the corporate ladder and leaders with no money or obvious trappings of power. There are ugly leaders too, so charisma certainly isn’t about being attractive. It’s easy to give in to your fear and tell yourself that you don’t have what it takes to lead. Mostly, people give up when they get to the charisma part of the checklist. “I wasn’t born charismatic, not like those other guys, so I guess I’ll just settle for following.” The flaw in this reasoning is that those other guys weren’t born charismatic either. It’s a choice, not a gift.

If your organization requires success before commitment, it will never have either.

Part of leadership (a big part of it, actually) is the ability to stick with the dream for a long time.

To have all these advantages, all this momentum, all these opportunities and then settle for mediocre and then defend the status quo and then worry about corporate politics—what a waste. Flynn Berry wrote that you should never use the word “opportunity.” It’s not an opportunity, it’s an obligation. I don’t think we have any choice. I think we have an obligation to change the rules, to raise the bar, to play a different game, and to play it better than anyone has any right to believe is possible.

Albert Einstein said, “Imagination is more important than knowledge.” Leaders create things that didn’t exist before. They do this by giving the tribe a vision of something that could happen, but hasn’t (yet). You can’t manage without knowledge. You can’t lead without imagination.

People don’t believe what you tell them. They rarely believe what you show them. They often believe what their friends tell them. They always believe what they tell themselves. What leaders do: they give people stories they can tell themselves. Stories about the future and about change.