Slingshots – not the toy, but the event, the idea behind pulling something back slowly, waiting and then releasing at which point the object is propelled at an increasingly fast rate across a distance.
Applied to leadership – waiting, holding back, not saying anything, perhaps biding one’s time and then… a Tsunami of advice, direction, guidance, opinions that were never there before but are now.
It seems like a good approach but what is missing is the consistency, the daily grind, the touchpoint, the checking in, the seeing how you are doing. Slingshot Leadership is based on the big events happening and the hope that they will surpass the lost moments in between as we worked towards the “big” goal.
But it fails at capturing the small pieces that shape leadership – the “how are you doing?”, “stop and talk to me”, “let’s figure a way out of this”,”you need to correct what you are doing” – all those little things amount to something more than a Slingshot of big promises and big endeavours.
Which would you rather? Than go lead for what you’d want.
