The Tightrope Walker Manager
Navigating the Challenges of Leadership
It takes 20 years to build a manager. 20 years of continuous swinging on the tightrope of fear.
Like tightrope walkers, managers lean between the fear of being overtaken by people who have something more than them and the fear that their team will lose drive and, ultimately, competitiveness for having relied on unambitious people. Managers risk falling painfully. But those who make it and get to the end receive cheers from the audience-the same audience that lives in constant expectation of a misstep.
It takes 20 years and faced with such a long period of time, which is half of a person’s working life, we understand how important it is to retain people. However, retention can be very expensive. When people want to leave, it’s difficult for them to perform 100%. If they agree to stay for the money, it tells us that the value system on which we base the company is poor.
I believe in open systems, I believe in knowing how to attract people who also have different backgrounds but who are attracted by values, perhaps at a specific moment in their life trajectory.
There are bees and gardeners. There is no point in forcing heroes to be farmers and vice versa; the company must be able to manage both.
