Leading So People Will Follow

Speaking from a “We” Versus “I” Perspective

The first time I met Josh Sapan many years ago, he had stopped into a meeting that one of his direct reports was having with her team. They were talking about whether to create Web sites in support of their TV networks, a fairly new idea at the time. He listened for a while and then said, “You know, it seems important to think about this not from right now, but from where things are going to be in ten years. I think we’d regret not having done this, looking back.” He was the boss’s boss, but he entered into the conversation about the future from the point of view of “we’re all in this together” rather than “I’m the leader, and what I say goes.”

As I’ve worked with Josh and other good leaders over the ...