In an effective team, all members can achieve more than they could on their own, so put your best employees in strategic positions, so they can uplift each other when necessary.
Some leaders, caught by their emotions, put incompetent relatives or people they care about in leading and strategic positions, which ruins their vision and their company. There are many ways to take care of people you hold dear.
You need to make hard choices by giving space to the best performing employees to move forward, regardless of their background.
Learn from eagles
As the eagle’s young get older, competition for food becomes tougher, space in the nest becomes scarcer, and the strongest chicks often kill or kick out the weaker ones. The mother does nothing to stop this because she knows that she can’t feed them all until they are able to feed themselves, she knows that the nest is not big enough for all of them, and she wants the strongest to survive.
The leadership logic taught by eagles
There is profound leadership logic in this rule of nature. What happens if the mother interferes and doesn’t let the strongest claim its ground? All of them may go hungry, and none of the chicks may survive. The lesson I take from this is not about being mean, heartless, and watching unfair things unfold. It means that you cannot feed and save them all. You cannot afford to have unproductive, weak employees on board, your future leaders need to be strong and carry the organization forward.
A moment of reflection
Having read the above think about your leadership development strategy.
- What process do you apply to select and develop your future leaders?
- If you had three criteria for your selection what would those be?
Originally published at first-class-leadership.com