Leadership is a Relationship

CHAPTER 6The Long and Winding Road (Loyalty)

Of all the themes we explore in this book, loyalty is probably the most heraldic. It's the one that looks most at home on a crest or in some grand motto—maybe even a coat of arms. It's also unfortunately easy to warp into all kinds of cynical shapes. If loyalty can be the glue that holds us together, it can also be bastardized to trap people in dysfunctional, frustrating, or even abusive situations, all in the supposed name of fidelity.

We're interested in loyalty principally between people. (That should hardly come as a surprise by this point.) You can certainly be loyal to an idea, an organization, or maybe even a physical thing, but that's not our focus. As two people strengthen their relationship, they develop greater loyalty toward each other. After experiencing first-hand how transformative acts of loyalty can be, people often move forward with a significantly greater desire to foster new relationships and find mutual loyalty in all corners of their lives.

This is a dynamic that we've seen over and over throughout the book: a positive, substantive relationship doesn't just benefit the two people involved. It inspires the creation of more relationships and more acts of character. As you read the three stories in this chapter, pay attention to the idea of paying things forward. Loyalty compounds when people don't just pay favors back, but also decide to pass the loyalty that they were shown onward.

Sometimes, It's Pay It Forward ...