Member-only story
Organizations Die Because Leaders Keep Making This One Mistake.
Are you going to let something good grow into something better — or strangle it with your ego?
Don’t be this guy:
I know I said I’d step aside last April, but you know what it’s like— this whole thing only works because of me! How do they expect to run this without me? I’m the only person who makes it work. Nobody noticed when I didn’t go away, so what difference does it make? I got nothing but positive feedback when I stayed.
It’s paraphrased for privacy’s sake. But the sad part is that if you tried to guess who I was quoting, you’d almost certainly be wrong. It could be any number of people — including myself, at times.
It’s a familiar story:
An intelligent, passionate, often charismatic person has an idea. It resonates. People gather around, and together, they make that vision a reality. As it succeeds, people start telling the leader what a great idea was, how much they like it. This thing you’ve created, it’s so wonderful! they say.
And that’s where it starts to go wrong.
