Leading from the front

If you’re in business you may have heard it. “The best leaders will lead from the front”.

If you’re in business you may have heard it. “The best leaders will lead from the front”.

What does leading from the front mean?

To start, leading from the front means that you have to do, before you can ask or understand why others would do.

This doesn’t mean that you need to be stuck in the micro, you also need to see the macro as a leader.

Let me show you what this means in a business leadership context.

I manage a sales team.

When one of my sales reps needs to make 10 calls a day, I need to understand what messaging works, what people they need to reach, how often they’re likely going to book a meeting with a customer etc.

I need to do this across the entire company.

I need to know how many meetings are going to be booked, quotes sent, deals closed.

This is the micro.

Let’s take it to the macro.

I need to know how all of these micro opportunities work so I’m comfortable asking the individual to do the tasks, but then I also have to understand the macro, or the bigger picture.

I need to understand how each activity, that I’m comfortable asking people to do, impacts the vision of the organization, the long term strategy, top line revenue and overall goals.

This is the way to lead, and if you ever choose to lead without understanding both the micro and the macro, you are a poor leader.

Now let’s extrapolate this to our current situation.

Pandemic. Covid-19. Quarantine. Social Distancing.

We all need to be leaders.

We all need to lead from the front.

You need to understand the micro and the macro.

We need to understand and do the micro.

Social distance, stay at home, lead by example on the simple things.

Let your understanding of the macro drive you in your day to day implementation of the micro.

Don’t be selfish.

The macro, world vision of beating this, protecting our most vulnerable population, EVEN if it doesn’t apply intrinsically to you (you may be healthy, you may not have grandparents in jeopardy etc.).

Is important.

Let the macro — high level view. As a leader. Drive your purpose in your day to day, your community, your family, your peer group etc.

Then act on the micro every day, social distance, stay home, listen to the people who are acting in our best interest.

Understand that no-one has all the answers, and everyone is just trying to do their best (governments included), and the more we can help eachother out, knowing that noone has an end-of-the-world playbook.

The sooner we’re going to beat this thing.