I’m a big fan of Hugh MacLeod, an artist and business / leadership / being-a-decent-person guru who tells it like it is.
I got this in my daily email from him this morning, and wanted to not only share it with you guys, but to suggest that you might enjoy his daily musings as well.
Positivity trickles down through the ranks. Negativity spreads faster, like fire.
When leaders model aggressive, confrontational behavior, employees pick up on it. This is how companies end up with toxic cultures. Leadership loses it, and the rest follow.
Some people can’t handle confrontation at all and start hiding from it.
Others become aggressive themselves. The rest check out.
But when leaders model empathy and clear communication, they create a culture of mutual respect.
~ Hugh MacLeod
We have the choice, wherever we lead. We can bring out the best in each other, or bring out fear and defensiveness.
And because each of us is creating the future with every action we take (whether we do so consciously or not), the conditions we create for others have serious consequences for the world we want to create.
In every encounter, we have that choice. Because we are all leading, all the time. Choose wisely!
There are many ways to follow Hugh’s work. I get his daily emails, which puts one of his cartoons, with a few lines of his thinking, in my mailbox every weekday . You can also find him on Facebook and a whole lot of other places.
