The Grand Old Duke of York had 10,000 men. It's not known if he'd been accused of being a peodophile or if he'd done a 'car-crash' TV interview. It's also unclear how many of his men were transitioning, on the spectrum, or suffering from PTSD. For the purposes of this butt we'll assume they were coping OK with a bit of therapy. It's not clear how they felt about their work/life balance, given they had possibly been in battle as recently as yesterday and were now on the march yet again.
Anyway the Ol' Duke marched them up to the top of the hill and then he marched them down again.
And when they were up, they were up and when they were down, they were down and when they were only halfway up, they were neither up nor down.
What an idiot! This isn't leadership. It's a futile misuse of precious human resource and he should be stripped of his patronages and thrown out of his grace-and-favour mansion.
Leadership isn’t about grabbing the flag and marching off, expecting your loyal employees to follow you. Being the leader doesn't make you the smartest person in the room.
I prefer to think of leadership in the context of an orchestra. The leader is the conductor. If s/he hires all violins (and no-one else) it's not going to be very melodic. So s/he acquires a balance of instrumental skills from the pip-squeak of the piccolo to the thunder-clap of the kettle drum. Then the conductor's job is to get them to play beautiful melodic music - the right musical score to the right tempo. S/he can't play every instrument, but s/he knows the desired outcome and is resolutely focussed on it.
Notice that the conductor faces the orchestra, with his/her back to the customer. The orchestra faces the audience and plays to them.
Incidently, in scuba diving the instructor who leads a group of novice divers will often swim backwards; they already know where they're going and will periodically glance over their shoulder to check, but they want to make sure the novices get there too - that their equipment works, they have enough air and they have perfect neutral bouyancy. They are leading the group backwards.
Your job as the leader of your business is to set the vision, mission and objectives - so your team knows what they are doing and why. The strategy and tactics are what they are there to figure out and execute given their various complimentary skills. You are then there to conduct them.
Think of it as leading your team backwards.
As for the Grand Ol' Duke - his men (and those who had already by now made the transition) deserted him at the bottom of the next hill and he met the enemy on his own. Regrettably he was captured and suffered a cruel and lonely demise. His body was dumped alongside the A39. His dukedom was compulsorily purchased and they built a Pizza Express a-top his final resting place, where he could not-sweat for eternity.
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