Insights

lighthouse

May 28, 2020

Leader as lighthouse?

Another week, another high profile leader losing trust in buckets with plummeting popularity.  Rather than focus on lack of trust in government and the media, far too much airtime spent on that already, let’s get back to basics and understand the role of leaders in delivering on the high expectations we have of them.  What is the role of a leader right now?  

Let me introduce you to the relevant and timely work of Jacob Morgan, best selling author, speaker and futurist whose compelling message in this sea of uncertainty is the role of leaders to lead us through these unchartered waters. He talks about the leader’s role to become a lighthouse.

The entire purpose of a lighthouse is to guide people to safety, help them find their way back home, and help make sure they stay away from rocks or cliffs that might crush their ships. 

It’s a leader’s role to guide us to success, to help make sure that we stay away from the rocks, we don't crash into the cliffs, and that as individuals and organisations as a whole we can succeed. In order to do that, leaders have to build themselves up. Leaders have to become lighthouses evolving and adapting at an accelerated pace to shine their light onto others and onto the sea of uncertainty that we are all a part of.

Leaders have an unimaginable challenge right now not only for their organisations but for society as a whole. And this is why the visual of a lighthouse is so relevant for the leader of today and of the future.  Hear more from Jacob Morgan here.

You may think common sense, but does common sense always translate into common practice?  Great leaders, human leaders take responsibility to tackle the hard stuff, to be transparent, to tell the truth with compassion and empathy and find a way to take the learnings and lead us into the future, a different future but definitely a future.

Let’s not continue to give airtime to a small number of high profile outliers whose popularity one day may rise again, but what trust we did had in them will never recover.  Their light has dimmed.

Let’s call out the good, so many of the clients I work with, talented leaders, human leaders working under immense pressure to ensure survival, to create a future guiding their people and communities safely onto new shores.