Leaders Don't Command: Inspire Growth, Ingenuity, and Collaboration

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Leadership From Within

A British corporal described General Slim talking to his unit:

There were no exhortations or grandiose clichés; there were no jokes or barracks talk…. Informally, he told us what would happen, in the reflective tone of an intimate conversation. And we believed everything he said, carried out every order. I think his greatest gift was an ability to create a sense of being close to us, as though he were chatting offhand to an understanding nephew…. He had the head of a general with the heart of a private soldier. (Stouffer 1949, quoted in Burleigh 2010)

We have seen that leadership is really a type of relationship. For that reason, as in all human relationships, creating a leadership relationship requires that not just ...