• Home
  • Blog
  • Now
  • Don't
  • Home
  • Blog
  • Now
  • Don't
ben johnson & co.

the blog

You can only exercise leadership to the point you can bear pain

9/10/2015

0 Comments

 
“You can only exercise leadership to the point you can bear pain". I heard this phrase from Lorna Dueck while preparing for my presentation at a conference I was speaking at. It stuck with me and continued to bounce around my mind.

If given the opportunity I’ll ask that speaker to expand on those words. That phrase is deep in meaning but it’s not obviously clear to me. Perhaps it’s that leaders generally forge a path for their followers and that path is limited by our ability to tussle through the rough brambles life offers. Or perhaps it’s that we need to bear pain on behalf of our followers.

In doing some googling, I found this great quote on leadership and pain:

The first responsibility of a leader is to define reality; The last is to say thank you. In between the two, the leader must become a servant and a debtor . . . A friend of mine characterized leaders simply like this: 'Leaders don't inflict pain; they bear pain. -- Max De Pree
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    RSS Feed

    Archives

    March 2019
    July 2017
    April 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    June 2016
    April 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015

1025 Pandora Ave, Victoria, BC, V8V 3P6   //  1-250-580-4BEN