Want To Learn The Secrets To Leadership

Want To Learn The Secrets To Leadership

Inspiration

I am reading 11 Rings, by Phil Jackson.

This book is by and far one of the most excellent books on leadership that I have read.

Think about it, Coach Phil Jackson, with 11 NBA Championship rings, who coached the likes of Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen, Dennis Rodman, Kobe Bryant, and Shaquille  O’Neal, gives his take on what it took to actually lead some of the greatest basketball players.

Let’s not forget those are some pretty big name players, and to get players of those caliber to come together as a team is quite an undertaking, for which Jackson did a pretty good job.

What I most like about this book is its reference to Tribal Leadership, by Dave Logan, John King, Halee Fischer-Wright.

This was the first time that I had ever heard of this type of thinking with regards to leadership. In the book, Logan, King and Fischer-Wright state that there are 5 stages to leadership and that in order to be a truly successful “tribe”, one needs to get to stage 5.

Tribes can be thought of as an group of people coming together and sharing in some common event, subject, theme, or job. A “tribe” is loosely defined simply as a group of people.

For tribes to advance in their evolution, they need to move past negative or ego driven agendas toward those of group/community focused or life is great mentalities.

Here are the 5 stages:

STAGE 1 — (Despairing Hostility) shared by most street gangs and characterized by despair, hostility, and the collective belief that “life sucks.”  2% of the population are at this stage.

STAGE 2 — (Apathetic Victim)  filled primarily with apathetic people who perceive themselves as victims and who are passively antagonistic, with the mind-set that “my life sucks.” Think The Office on TV or the Dilbert comic strip. 25% of the population are at this stage.

STAGE 3 — (Lone Warrior) focused primarily on individual achievement and driven by the motto “I’m great (and you’re not).” According to the authors, people in organizations at this stage “have to win, and for them winning is personal. They’ll outwork and out-think their competitors on an individual basis. The mood that results is a collection of “lone warriors.” 48% of the population are at this stage.

STAGE 4 — (Tribal Pride) dedicated to tribal pride and the overriding conviction that “we’re great (and they’re not).” This kind of team requires a strong adversary, and the bigger the foe, the more powerful the tribe. 22% of the population are at this stage.

STAGE 5 — (Innocent Wonderment) a rare stage characterized by a sense of innocent wonder and the strong belief that “life is great.” (See Bulls, Chicago, 1995–98.)  2% of the population are at this stage.

The job of any leader is to be fluent in all five stages and to recognize where their “tribe” is currently at. It may be that the collective consciousness of the group does match each individual. For example, you may have a sprinkling of Stage 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 people in your tribe, but the overall majority of them are in one Stage or another.

Another important point worth noting is that members in your tribe can oftentimes  only hear and understand one level above and below from where they currently are. Thus the reason leaders need to be fluent in all five stages.

Moving your members of your tribe throughout the different stages is what I believe true leadership is all about.

And this notion of tribal leadership can be extrapolated to just about any area of life, not just work related, but family as well. For a family is also a tribe.

I am personally using this both professionally and personally to grow and enhance all the various tribes that exist in my life.

The old adage, your attitude determines your altitude, surely applies when it comes to this idea of tribal leadership. The more I focus on, Life is Great, and service to others, the more the tribes in my life begin to positively grow.

Here is a great TED Talk Video, by Dave Logan, one of the authors of the book, Tribal Leadership: (
Time 16:37 minutes)