By Rich Drinon An essential rule of leadership is making more allies than enemies. If you don’t have more allies, you at least need ones that are more powerful than your enemies.
Sometimes the votes and related actions that bring one into power seem like a popularity contest. The people’s favorite candidate or the heir to the throne or the boss’s cherished successor or the board’s “fair haired” child are chosen to step up and serve as leader. In most cases, however, a leader is immediately faced with making decisions that may reduce his or her popularity.
Over the course of the leader’s journey he or she must find a way to balance popularity with the need to make choices, and the possible outcomes of:
- Creating enemies or losing allies
- Being backed into a corner or thrust onto the front page
- Being peacefully ousted or – worse – violently deposed
For this…
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Rich Drinon, M.A., is President of Drinon & Associates. He provides group training and individual coaching for leaders, mangers and other executives. www.drinonandassociates.com