Are You A Funnel Or A Cork?

“A leader’s role is to raise people’s aspirations for what they can become and to release their energies so they will try to get there.” David R. Gergen

Many people have the misconception that a leader is a person that knows everything, tells everything, and is someone who is always at minimum tens steps ahead of everyone else, and for this reason they are the leader!  But leaders are those who first of all are capable (and smart enough) to assemble a winning combination of people who are suited for the job and can teach them the joys of teamwork.

Anyone can run around and boss everyone around and tell others what to do, but who wants to do that when if you could develop the inner talent of those you work with and inspire in them to reach decisions within their realm of expertise!  If you want to always “call the shots” and be the “big cheese” and make sure everyone knows who the boss is, what you will eventually realize, if not sooner, then later you are becoming a cork and the bottleneck to progress!

In every business, be it large are small, there are so many things that need to be taken care of.  Surely at the beginning stages as you are forming a team, you will need to get more involved, but if you do not begin early on to use the art of delegation and teaching others to make those petty decisions, you will find yourself with a big problem.  Everything is waiting on you, and nothing is getting done because you have not take the time to inspire in others how to make wise decisions.

If you have carefully selected your team members and are happy with who you have chosen, then it is time to become a funnel.  What is a funnel?  Someone who can take in a large amount of ideas and suggestions and begin the process to bring it down to a workable solution. It is important to be open to others observations and ideas and to encourage them to think things out and make the right questions in order to arrive to the proper solutions! You are simply there to give the thumbs up when they have reached the right decision.

You don’t have to have all of the answers, you just need to know where the ship is heading, work together with your team to find them best way to guide the ship in the right direction.  That to me is sign of a real leadership!

Are you a funnel or a cork?