Spiritual Business

Being a leader can be a bitch

The new puppy has had a session with a dog trainer. I was a little distracted at the beginning as he reminded me of Harlan Pepper from 'Best in Show', so for the purposes of this post, I will hereafter refer to the trainer as 'Mr Pepper.'

What I liked about Mr Pepper, was his no nonsense approach to training dogs and his theory and understanding of wolf pack behaviour. Mr Pepper explained to me that a dog will naturally step up top the leaders podium if no one else in the house takes the position.

However, being a leader is stressful and a leader with no real responsibilities becomes a stressed out dog with crazy arse behaviors. This is what happened to my last dog. Sure we loved her but we let her be the boss and then created and continued outrageous dog neurosis.

In the pack, the Alpha dog, who becomes the leader is not the biggest or the strongest, but in fact the calmest and the most alert. The strongest one is usually the Beta dog, the wingman of the Alpha dog. I was thinking about this in relation to leading a business or being in a leadership position in a company. Often, the ones who are the worst leaders are the ones who can't handle the responisbility. Or those who don't have any real power to be responsible, so they act out and chase their tail and snap and growl at others in the pack.

The lowest in the pack is the Omega dog, the court jester of the pack, the one we all laugh at and who we allow to eat last. I hope there are no Omegas in my company. I know of Omegas in other organisations, though. Omegas are important, they keep the team spirit us, hence my need to hire people with a sense of humour!

Mr Pepper explained that being the Alpha is hard and the whole survival of the entire pack depends on the Alphas knowledge and cunning. It's future forward thinking and protection from outside dangers. I understand this feeling. It is hard being the leader at times. Sometimes I feel weighed under from the responsibility to keep the cogs turning, the running on the mouse wheel can be very, very tiring.

When times are good and the caribous are running then we can play but when the famine comes then the leader has to make hard decisions. The weakest and most vulnerable must be left behind. The strong eat first and there are no new puppies to join till the grass is green again. Exactly the same in business. We have made some hard decisions over the last 12 months, but we know now that the caribou and moose are running again and so I am confident for a comfortable winter.

I am off to howl at the moon.

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