Your challenge this month is to determine what type of leader you are and what kind of organization you want to run. The first step is picking up a copy of Tribal Leadershipby Dave Logan, John King & Halee Fischer-Wright. This is a sometimes humorous and highly meaningful read on building your tribe (defined herein as 20 – 150 people) in such a way that you can leverage the power of people you know who also know each other. There are five stages described and you’ll be able to quickly determine that you’re certainly not stuck at Stage One (those who believe “life sucks,” which thankfully is only about 2% of American professionals) or Stage Two (“my life sucks,” 25%). The alarming part for the reader is recognizing him/herself at Stage Three, at which point one has determined that they’re great, but others around them are not. It is at this stage where the authors say fully one-half of American professionals camp out and it’s a population loaded with doctors, professors, attorneys and salespeople. As with last month’s featured book, The Thank You Economy by Gary Vaynerchuk, the mission here is to rise above the typical and do the little things that make one exceptional.
The authors share a simple goal for the reader: upgrade your tribes from Stage Three to Stage Four, at which point the belief is “we’re great.” “Tribal Leaders do two things,” they write. “(1) listen for which cultures exist in their tribes and (2) upgrade those tribes using specific leverage points.” The best way to do this is to recognize the limiting factors that in part define Stage Three, namely that effectiveness for all of us is capped by time. “The more the person can accept help from others,” they say, the more that person will realize that help and teamwork are “necessary to becoming a fully developed leader.” Bottom line, if you find yourself bemoaning the lack of time, support, talent and dedicated people around you, you reside at Stage Three and this book ought to be on your short list. (Editor’s note: If you say you don’t have time to read, well, you may just be the Mayor of Threeville. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Or is there? Not judging, not judging.)
Thankfully, the late Steve Jobs gets but two mentions in the book. At the risk of committing outright heresy, does anyone else wonder why someone as widely known to treat his people so badly is so universally lauded as a great leader? Maybe one can build the most valuable company on the planet and create a cult of a client base without behaving like a sloth-like, hateful boss. (End of rant.) It’s also fun to note that Donald Trump warrants a mention…and gets summarily ripped in it. But celebrity examples aside, perhaps the best part of Tribal Leadership is the hard look in the mirror the reader is forced to take. As I read about Stage Five (“life is great”), I found myself thinking that the book had gotten a bit hokey, as in, c’mon guys, really? At Stage Five, one has rendered his/her competition irrelevant and no longer competes against firms providing the same service, rather against the problem itself which requires a solution. The quickest way to recognize you’re not at this stage is to think the authors have been smoking funny cigarettes. No, but what they have done is written a book that helps the reader conclude what’s real, what’s possible and what’s required to stay the course toward limitless opportunity.