Smell a lot like the flock

From The Simple-Minded Manager, Cutting Through Your Work-Life Chaos

Several years ago, I attended a high-level workshop on leadership. It was an intense complicated program, and by the third day of a weeklong course, I was thoroughly confused. At the coffee break, I confessed my confusion to Peter, the course director. Peter told me, "Leadership is actually quite simple", and invited me to join him on a short afternoon walk. As we strolled across a broad field, he told me a story about a walk he had taken as a young man when he sought to better understand the essence of leadership.

"I was walking across a field toward the crest of a hill. As I reached the hilltop, I heard a distant racket and began to sense the smell of animals. When I reached the crest and could see a large valley below, it was clear that the noise and smell belonged to an enormous flock of sheep. From my perspective at the top of the hill, the flock moved purposefully across the wide valley.

For some reason, I was compelled to take a closer look. I worked my way down the hillside into the flock. As I became engulfed within, I was shocked by the chaos of the flock. From within, all I could sense was din and random movement.

The dichotomy of perspectives suddenly hit me. From the crest of the hill, the flock was clearly directed and purposeful, but at its center the flock was chaos.

Then I saw him -- the shepherd. He was right in the middle of the chaos, nurturing a panicked lamb separated from its mother, nudging a young ram determined to move against the current, calming a ewe frantically searching for her lamb.

I noticed something important about that shepherd:

He was not at the front of the flock waving a flag. He was not at the rear of the flock brandishing a cattle prod.

No, the shepherd was there in the center of the chaos, nurturing, nudging, calming.

And it became crystal clear -- this is the essence of leadership."*

That short walk with Peter and that simple story cleared my confusion, and the details of the leadership workshop began to fall into place. As we walked back into the conference center, Peter said, "Forrest, one more thing -- the most effective leaders smell a lot like the flock!"

*Peter J. Neary, Leadership at the Peak, Center for Creative Leadership, 1995

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