Axioms on Leadership: A Companion Guide for Developing Leaders

Teaching someone to lead is like teaching someone to swim - you can show them a movie or give them a book to read, but if you throw them in a pool they drown anyway. You must get in the pool with them and support them while they flounder until they finally relax and float. What’s the difference between leadership and management? Clearly you need to do both, and in fact without good management skills you are much less likely to become a good leader. This book is intended to be a companion for people learning to lead. What I hope to do in this book is first, to present clearly and concisely some of the challenges of leadership, and in doing so reassure you that what you may be experiencing has likely been faced before and is not unique to you. Second, to provide a basic framework and tools for helping to manage those challenges - thereby freeing you to focus on the more important task of leading. This framework is divided into execution and strategy. Here execution is focused on developing a management system, decision- making, and financial acumen. The strategy discussion is focused on taking strategy to action, leading change, and relationship management. Finally, and most importantly, I provide a section on leading people and introduce the axioms on leadership - a set of insights distilled from my experience that will serve as a companion as you develop into a better leader. The approach taken here is intentionally brief and to the point, and my hope is to provide practical knowledge. Many of the topics may warrant additional reading. I leave that to the discretion of the reader, and where relevant I’ve added references to aid in that endeavor. The approach is also intended to serve as a companion - that is, to provide the developing leader somewhere to turn for advice.