— To follow is a bullet of wisdom on leadership. It comes from Tom’s rifle, named Shot, who has seen it all. You’ll get the drift by clicking Blog in the menu above. —
“Hey, Rudy, we’ve got a problem. My chamber is ‘loaded’ with a spent shell.” Now that rarely happened, at least with Rudy. But on occasion, someone would pull back my bolt too slowly to eject the spent casing. Then amidst the goings-on, the bolt would be errantly slammed forward and pushed downward, thinking a new round had been inserted into the chamber. I try to get the word back, but then what shooter listens to me. After taking steady aim and carefully squeezing the trigger, “click.” Just “click,” and the game gets away.
Leaders need to listen to feedback from below. Those below must provide feedback up the chain, and, therefore, they should, but they don’t always. The leader may be too caught up in his tasks, too proud, too confident, too—well, anything—that’s why they need feedback: they can’t see or know it all. Want your team to succeed? Establish a pattern of collaboration, of deliberately listening, of willingly and humbly seeking feedback, even—no, especially, from below. That’s your team. That’s the unit that will make you, them, and the organization successful. You don’t want your-thought-to-be perfect actions to fail—perhaps, even fail to fire.