(1) Resolve to lead, and know why. Be a leader and not a follower.
One fundamental decision one must make is whether to lead or
to follow. Are you going to be a weather vane or a signpost?
The words of fictional Cabinet Minister Jim Hacker are a
cautionary tale: “It's the people's will. I am their leader. I must follow
them."
Some would-be leaders are tempted to shy away from the argument, not even to seek to persuade but only to please.
(2) Seek to lead, and consider how. Have some followers!
An opposite error, perhaps, is to have no regard to the political
art of the possible.
Maybe you will lead by writing a book which will be
rediscovered in a century’s time and proved right, but in the meantime it might
be a rather lonely an ineffective leadership.
For now if you walk off too far ahead, you may not be a
leader but someone on their own going for a walk. How might people follow? Do
you perhaps need to go more slowly than you’d like? What would help others to
take a step, to come along with you?
We want to engage people. We aim to grab their ears. But maybe
it is possible to be too radical and to pull off the ears of many.